


another city is my home (because these violent delights have violent ends)

by darkrosemind



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Detective OC, F/F, F/M, My OC - Freeform, Mysterious Backgrounds, Slow Burn, bi character(s), chapter titles are song lyrics, everyone is bi bi bi bi bi, from kinda enemies to frenemies to friends to lovers, harboring secrets, oc comes the the 99, past dianetti, peraltiago on the side, yes the title is half shakespeare
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-26
Updated: 2019-01-24
Packaged: 2019-06-16 17:44:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 46,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15442446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkrosemind/pseuds/darkrosemind
Summary: Her name is Detective Angelina Riley, and she's new to the Nine-Nine. Moving cities can be tough, but she's going to try to face life head first.It's hard at first; she doesn't know what to expect from Brooklyn.But the Nine Nine; they're going to teach her how to love and live in the best possible way that they can.





	1. every face along the boulevard is a dreamer (just like you)

**Author's Note:**

> hi!! thank you for reading this! this is an ongoing project that i am working on--it's a very slow burn. i make stuff up along as i go. it's kinda crazy, but welcome to the party, pal!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angelina Riley is new to the Nine-Nine. She's not sure how to manage herself in this environment, but it might just work out. It might not, though, but she's going to try.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for clicking on this!! i hope you enjoy!!  
> chapter title is lyrics from dying in la by panic at the disco

“Listen up, squad. In approximately a small amount of time, Sergeant Jeffords is going to introduce our newest member. I would like all of you to be on your best behavior; especially you, Peralta,” Captain Holt lectures the squad on a Monday morning.  

Rosa Diaz sighs. “This is gonna suck,” she complains, tapping her foot impatiently on the floor.

“Come on, Rosa! Maybe whoever it is will be fun!” Jake says hopefully.

“Yeah! Come on, Rosa!” Charles Boyle sticks by his best friend as Rosa rolls her eyes and mutters something about ‘stupid new detective rookies.’

“Detective Diaz, with all due respect, I would like to inform you that our newest member is in fact, not a ‘rookie.’ She has been in a force nearly as long as all of you have, and I will assure you that she is quite experienced.” Captain Holt says.

“So it’s a she!” Jake says. “I hope she doesn’t care about rules much." He grins widely and flicks a shred of paper at Rosa. She rolls her eyes again and brushes it out of her hair.

Captain Holt purses his lips tightly as they wait for Terry to arrive with their newest recruit. Rosa is clearly getting annoyed and impatient, and is itching to return to her desk to actually get some work done.

After another excruciating minute of waiting, the elevator finally pings. Everyone holds their breath in anticipation, except for Captain Holt.

Terry leads a woman out of the elevator. Her arms are crossed tightly over her chest and she looks around with a fierce gaze. She is wearing a black denim jacket over a maroon shirt and black jeans. Her badge glints gold at her belt, matching the rings on her combat boots. She briefly looks at each member of the squad.

Before Terry can say anything, the woman begins to rapidly speak. "My name is Detective Angelina Riley. I look forward to working with all of you," she says, sweeping a dark lock of hair behind her ear.

“Welcome to the Nine-Nine, detective,” Captain Holt says. He walks forward and shakes Detective Angelina Riley's hand.

“I’m sure that you’ll love it here,” Terry smiles.

“All right, squad, I trust that you will carry on with introductions. I expect you all in the briefing room in fifteen minutes.” Captain Holt says. “And… where is Gina?”

A head full of auburn hair pops up from under a desk. “Say hello to my followers!” she says, showing off her Instagram live video.

Captain Holt retreats to his office, and Terry shows Angelina to her new desk. It is right across from Rosa’s desk, which causes Rosa to scowl heavily.

“This sucks. I need walls around my desk,” she mutters under her breath. Angelina makes no comments and watches as Terry sets a box on her new desk.

“Thank you, Sergeant,” Angelina proceed to move the box under her desk. She sits down, and Jake and Charles flock in to meet her.

“I’m Detective Jake Peralta. We’re glad to have you here,” Jake says, and Angelina shakes his hand.

“And I’m Detective Charles Boyle. You can call me Charles.”

Angelina smiles at Charles. He turns towards Rosa and hums.

“Come on, Rosa! Say hello.”

“Go away, Charles,” Rosa says. "I have paperwork to do."

“Rosa's super cool. You just gotta give her time to get used to you,” Jake tells Angelina, and they hear a low _"shut up, Peralta"_ from Rosa’s direction.

“Aand she’s using last names now. Oof,” Jake lowers his voice into a whisper. Angelina looks up to the sound of a low and impatient humming, and they are joined by Gina Linetti, who carries out a tune through her closed lips that slightly resembles a Beyonce song. 

“Gina Linetti, blessing you by her presence since a minute ago,” she chirps, still tapping away on her cell phone.

“Angelina Riley, and your hair is gorgeous," Angelina says, but the compliment is stated in a rather flat tone.

Gina smiles, clearly eating up the praise. “I like you,” she decides, and struts back to her own desk. Jake checks the time on his phone.

“Amy should be up any minute now,” he says.

“Amy?” Angelina questions.

“My wife. Also a sergeant,” Jake boasts, with love and pride evident in his eyes.

The elevator opens to reveal a Latina woman in uniform. Amy Santiago-Peralta.

She makes her way to Jake, pecking him on the lips before smiling at Angelina. Angelina stands up and shakes Amy’s hand firmly, and Amy looks impressed.

“Nice handshake,” she comments. “It’s going to be nice having you around. You know, another woman and all. The ladies of the Nine-Nine are tight."

“Yeah, it's super cool that you're filling in Amy's old position as our newest detective on the squad," Jake says. "You get to work cases with us!"

“Now I'm the sergeant of the uniformed officers of the Nine-Nine," Amy says proudly. "Have you met Rosa— Detective Diaz yet?” Amy asks, curiously glancing at Rosa.

“Yes.” Rosa throws a menacing glare in Amy’s direction and stabs her pen down onto a sheet of paper.

“Rosa doesn't wanna be friendly right now," Jake whispers into Amy's ear.

“Oh.”

Rosa slams her file down onto her desk and stands up. "Time for the morning briefing," she announces loudly, and walks towards the briefing room without looking back.

“Well, that was awkward,” Amy says quietly. "But don't worry; she's Rosa. She'll come around to you. She's like the super scary badass one here."

Angelina shrugs. “Okay,” she says, and stands up to follow the rest of the squad to the briefing room. Captain Holt stands at the front of the room with Sergeant Jeffords, and everyone else scramble to grab a seat.

Angelina finds herself sitting next to Charles, who smiles and offers her a fist-bump. She returns it and snaps her attention towards Captain Holt, who is beginning to speak.

“Peralta. You have just wrapped up your drug bust, yes?” He says, and Jake nods in conformation.

“It was so cool. He was like ‘waaaah?’ and I was like ‘in yo face!’ and then I arrested him,” Jake delivers this story complete with making faces and lifting his voice an octave higher while imitating the drug lord.

He turns and accepts the high five that is waiting behind him from Charles.

“All right, Peralta. There is a new case that has just been brought to attention. It involves a ‘serial-mugger,’ per say, who has reportedly mugged many pedestrian victims. I would like to give this case to you and Detective Riley to work on,” Captain Holt says, dropping two files in front of Jake.

“Cool cool cool cool cool cool. Noice,” Jake says. He picks up one of the files and hands it to Angelina behind him. Angelina takes the file and puts it down on the table.

“What is everyone else working on?” Holt asks.

Rosa lifts one hand. “I've wrapped up my homicide case,” she announces. A small grin bites at the corner of her lips.

“The one in the food pantry?” Charles asks with concern. “Who did it?”

“The chef,” Rosa smiles triumphantly. Charles groans and pulls a five dollar bill from his wallet to hand it to Rosa. She pockets it with a smirk.

“Boyle. You are on your robbery case, correct?” Holt says pointedly. Charles nods, and Holt dismisses them from the briefing room.

As the detectives return to the bullpen, Amy pulls Angelina aside.

“What are you doing?” Angelina hisses.

“Rosa was making mean eyes at you during the briefing. She clearly thinks that you're competition," Amy states.

“What? Why? I literally _just_ got here,” Angelina makes a face at Amy. Amy shrugs.

“It takes Rosa a long time to get used to someone new. Especially someone who walks in like you did. Taking immediate control of your position here and stuff.” Amy explains. “So just be chill around her, okay? She’s my best friend.”

“Got it, Sarge.” Angelina shrugs. "I'll... be chill around Detective Diaz, I guess?"

Amy smiles at the title, and releases Angelina’s arm. “I’m excited for your place at the Nine-Nine,” she says. Angelina returns her smile, and returns to her desk with her case file in hand.

Angelina sits down at her desk and pushes the file aside. She instead opens her box of personal stationary and notebooks, as well as a miniature skyline of Chicago, which she sets on the side of her desk; right next to her name plate which reads **Det. Angelina Riley.**

Rosa focuses on her computer screen across from her, scowling blackly as her screen freezes. She bangs her fist on her keyboards, causing mostly everyone to jump up in surprise.

“Gina,” she calls. “Internet’s down again.”

The assistant groans from across the room, phone in hand. “Tell Savant,” she calls. "I can't be bothered by this right now. There's shit going down in Hollywood."

“Who’s Savant?” Angelina asks out of mild curiosity.

“Tech guy,” Rosa replies shortly. 

Angelina turns her attention to the case file sitting in front of her. Right as she opens the case file, Jake walks by.

“Hey, we gotta add you to the Nine-Nine group chat,” Jake says, balancing his phone across his palm.

“Huh?” Angelina murmurs, her eyes still on the file.

“He’s asking for your number, dummy,” Rosa says, smirking. Jake high fives her.

“Yeah, to add you to the group chat.”

He hands Angelina his phone, and she quickly types her phone number in. A second later, she gets a notification on her own phone and opens up the Nine-Nine group chat.

“Congrats! You’re officially a part of the Nine-Nine now!” Jake says. He types something on his phone and Angelina opens up her own phone to see.

 

**Jake: sup! rileys a part of the 99 now**

**Charles: yay!**

**Rosa: yay 🔪🔪**

**Charles: come on rosa we know youre excited**  

 **Rosa: i am. I said yay**  

 **Amy: With knife emojis, though.**  

 **Rosa: 🔪🔪🔪**  

 **Angelina: nice knife. ⚔ two swords**  

**Jake: ooooooh 😮😮**

**Rosa: 🔪🗡🔪🔪**

 

“Why are all of you texting? You are all literally standing two feet apart from each other. You could all easily speak verbally,” Captain Holt comes by, and Angelina turns her phone off sheepishly. 

“We just added Riley to the group chat!” Jake tell him. “Also, we are so talking.” With that, Holt walks away to find Gina, and the squad resumes their texting.

 

**Gina: if holts looking for me don’t tell him where i am**

**Jake: where are you?😀😁😃😄😊🙂**

**Gina: in heaven where i belong 💯🔥**

**Amy: She’s in the break room.**

**Gina: i said don’t tell**

**Terry: What are all of you doing**

**Terry: I thought boyle was on a stake out**

**Charles: …**

**Rosa: i have a case tb working on**

**Jake: same rosa but ill do it later who care abt it 😎😎😎**

******Angelina: i do**

**Amy: Finally someone who cares about their work. 🙂**

**Charles: aMY USED AN EMOJI**

**Charles: SOMEONE SCREENSHOT THIS**

**Charles: IT’S FINALLY HAPPENING**

**Charles: AMY USED AN EMOJIIIISDFRTYTYUIUYTR**

 

Rosa visibly rolls her eyes at this little exchange and puts her phone away. Jake sighs with relief. 

“Whew, I thought he was gonna say something about babies,” he mutters, and Rosa snickers. "I mean, Amy totally uses emojis. She texted me a bunch of those little heart ones last night."

"Was she drunk?" Rosa asks pointedly, and Jake grins.

"Yup, but she used  _seven_ heart emojis." He turns away from Rosa and looks over to Angelina. "Hey, so we're working on this case together! Your first case at the Nine-Nine, with the Nine-Nine's best detective!" he grins, pointing to himself with both of his thumbs.

Angelina opens the file and points to a picture of one of the mugging sites. “Do you want to go visit the crime scene?” She asks. Jake scratches the back of his neck.

“We can go after lunch,” he offers, and Angelina agrees. “We could look through the file and see if we come up with any leads,” Jake pitches. They work out a schedule for visiting the crime scenes, and Jake and returns to his desk.

Meanwhile, Rosa is arguing on the phone. “The freaking internet is down. What the hell do you want me to do? … Wait? That crap takes too long. This is bull-shit.” she slams the phone down into the receiver, and stalks off towards the bathroom. Angelina watches her go with slight amusement etched on her face.

“You’re gonna have to get used to that,” Charles says loudly. He is carrying a mug towards the microwave.

“Thanks for the tip,” Angelina mutters. She opens the file and squints at the pictures, trying to look for any clues.

The most common scene of mugging is in front of a small looking cafe, which is right next to a video game shop. Angelina furrows her eyebrows.

“Hey, Riley!” Jake calls from across the bullpen. “This dude steals only electronics. We should call him The Techno Thief. You know, technology thief.”

“Okay, sure,” Angelina says. “The Techno Thief it is.”

“Yes!” Jake says, pumping his fist triumphantly into the air. "See, Terry, it's a cool nickname!"

Over the next few hours, Jake manages to get one of the mugging victims over to the precinct, and Angelina and Jake end up questioning the victim.

“So… what did this person look like?” Angelina asks.

“Uh… I don’t remember. They were wearing a black mask… I think it was a man.”

Jake nods. “Okay, were you able to see his face?”

“No, his hood was up. And he took my phone. Which I would really like back. Um, and he sort of held a freaking gun to my head…  Actually, something strange _did_ happen…” Angelina listens to the victim attentively, scribbling down notes on a notepad.

“Go on,” Jake says.

“Well, I met up with my boyfriend later on, and he wasn’t exactly happy to see me. I asked him what was wrong, and then he said that I had broken up with him over the phone? Something like that. It was weird, and then I told him that someone had _stole_ my phone and I still needed to get a replacement one… that was weird.”

“Did you have your location on?” Jake asks. “If you did, then we could potentially track it to see where it might be.:

“Yeah.” The victim gives Jake her phone number, and Jake gets Savant to track the phone. When Savant types quickly into his computer, he shakes his head.

“Sorry, man. Nothing here. Either location’s been turned off or the phone’s been destroyed.”

Angelina wrinkles her nose at this piece of bad news.

When the victim leaves the precinct (rather disappointed), it’s about time for their lunch break. Angelina finished her lunch quickly and finds herself back at her desk, looking over the case files again.

Meanwhile, Gina quickly ushers everyone into the break room to update them on what she’s found.

“So, I’ve been doing a little digging on Riley, and I think you’ll find this _very_ interesting.” Gina turns her phone screen towards Rosa, Amy, Jake, and Charles.

It shows a video of a big crowd.

“What is that? Where is that?” Amy asks. Gina glances at her phone and then turns it away again.

“Women’s March. But like the sister march in Chicago,” Gina says.

The video zooms in on a woman who is standing at a podium. She clears her throat to speak.

“Ohmigod, is that her? That’s Riley,” Jake squints at the small screen.

“Wow,” Charles comments.

“Wait, but there’s more,” Gina says. She swipes at her phone a couple of times and reveals a new video. “This is…. last year’s Washington D.C. Pride.”

She tilts the screen to show everyone again. A couple seconds  in to the video, Rosa grabs Gina’s phone and turns it off. She hands the phone back to Gina as everyone stares at her.

“Hey!” Gina complains, glaring at Rosa.

“This is snooping,” Rosa says.

“Yeah, and we’re detectives,” Gina says. Rosa, Jake, and Amy all raise an eyebrow at her.

“No, but this is personal. We shouldn’t be going into her business,” Rosa argues.

“I agree with Rosa,” Amy says.

“Aw, come on, you guys! What about you two?” Gina looks pointedly at Jake and Charles.

“Uh… we agree with Rosa?” Jake says quickly when Rosa shoots him a look. Charles nods along enthusiastically. Rosa looks Gina square in the eye.

“Don’t pry into her personal stuff, Gina. Don’t pry unless she tells you something _herself._ ” Gina rolls her eyes and slides her phone back into her pocket.

"It's not her  _personal stuff._ It's on the internet for anyone to see. And  _I_ am anyone." Gina halfheartedly argues, but she doesn't press the case too much when she sees Rosa's eyes flare dangerously at her.

“So… are we gonna tell her that we saw…” Jake trails off uncertainly.

Amy bites her lip and looks to Rosa. Rosa shakes her head firmly.

“I’m not saying anything about this. As far as I’m concerned, this never happened.” Rosa says sharply. She turns to leave the break room and bumps into Terry.

“Hey guys! What’s going on? You aren’t secretly plotting against Angelina, are you? Because she’s been staring at that file alone at her desk for a while now,” Terry tells them, fiddling with the straps of his suspenders.

“Oh, yeah! I was just gonna go help her out with that! Bye, Sarge!” Jake says, and whizzes out of the break room. Amy follows him out, mumbling about how she needs to get to work.

“Gina! Where have you been? Captain’s been looking for you!” Terry says. Gina rolls her eyes.

“First of all, I’m here, blessing you all with my presence. Now you expect me to _work?_ ” she complains. Gina examines her nails and flops down onto the couch.

“Yeah? Because that’s why you’re getting paid?” Terry interjects.

“Ugh, _fine._ But I demand a fifty percent raise.” She gets up and follows Terry out, leaving Charles all alone in the break room. He whips out his phone to check the group chat messages.

 

**Charles: so was that weird or what**

**Jake: YES, CHARLES, THE TUNA SANDWICH WAS VERY WEIRD 🍔**

**Amy: Jake, that’s a hamburger.**

Charles covers his mouth in surprise when he realizes his mistake. Angelina was in the group chat as well, and had no idea that they had been stalking her in the break room. Oh, Rosa was _so_ gonna kill him.

Right on cue, he hears her voice.

“Charles! What the hell! You have to be careful man!” Rosa storms into the break room and drags him out by his arm. “Don’t say _anything._ ”

“Ow ow ow ow ow. Please let go of my arm?”Charles begs her. "I promise I won't mess up again!" With a huff, Rosa releases him and returns back to her desk.

Angelina watches this without comment. She stands up and walks over to Jake’s desk, sitting down in the chair that has already been pulled up next to him.

“You seem really invested in this case,” Jake comments as Angelina sits down.

“It’s like my first day and my first case at this precinct. I don’t wanna mess anything up,” Angelina tells him.

“You’ll be fine,” Jake assures.

“I kinda wanna do good on this first case, y'know? I mean, I've definitely solved a bunch of cases way harder than this, but I've learned that it's the first impression that really counts," Angelina rambles on. "Well, this squad... You guys all seem to be pretty tight."

“We’re all like a big family at the Nine-Nine. We even have a family game night once in a while at Rosa's place. You should come next time. Rosa would love to have you there," Jake says.

Angelina snorts. "That's funny," she mutters. Her eyes flicker across the bullpen and to Rosa, who scowls at her computer screen as a scrawny IT guy sits at her desk and taps at her keyboard.

Jake chuckles. “No, seriously. Rosa might take some time warming up to you, but I think you guys would be really good friends!" He flits at the papers in the case file with his thumb. Angelina notices and peers closer at the case file. 

“So listen. I think I’ve got something on this case,” Angelina starts. Jake nods.

“Coolz. What is it?”

“Well, all of the reported victims are mostly young females. I managed to get into contact with another victim though a new cell, and she says that her father called later on and asked her why her ‘boyfriend’ called her father and told him that she ‘hates him.’ She said that her father was in her emergency contacts on her cell, and that she doesn’t _have_ a boyfriend.” Angelina says thoughtfully, twirling a pen in her hand.

“That… that is interesting. I bet that the girl that we talked to today had her boyfriend in her emergency contacts, too,” Jake replies.

“So… it’s easy to bet that these phones are password-protected, because I really haven’t met many people who _don’t_ password-protect their devices.”

“This dude is claiming to be his victims’ boyfriend?” Jake asks.

“Pretty much.”

“So it’s safe to assume that he’s a lonely single dude,” Jake adds on.

“Yeah. He’s probably young, then. Maybe he's working a part-time job somewhere around the scene of crime, as the reported time of assault was mid-afternoon," Angelina says, tapping at a picture of a few shops on a street in the case file.

“Damn, you are _good._ ” Jake comments. Angelina glows with pride at the compliment.

“I used to watch a lot of crime stuff in my free time,” she informs him. "You know, mainly to pick out all of the stuff they get wrong about police precincts on television." She laughs dryly before tossing her pen down on Jake's desk.

“Have you seen Die Hard? That’s the best cop movie of all time,” Jake asks excitedly. She stretches her jaw out without smiling.

“Uh, I’ve seen it. But like a really really really long time ago. The first one. I think I was in high school,” Angelina informs him. Jake isn’t fully disappointed, though. At least she knows what he’s talking about.

“Cool! Cool cool cool cool cool. No one around here's interesting in seeing another Die Hard marathon with me, so I guess you're up!  Can I see those pictures again?” Jake asks, and Angelina laughs shows him the pictures of the crime scene.

“So… there’s a coffee shop there, and a video game shop there… I would bet that The Techno Thief works at the video game store,” Jake concludes. Angelina smiles.

“Exactly! And, we have to make sure that we don’t rule _anyone_ out. The perp might be working with other people. Accessories to crime and shit like that.”

“So let’s head down there and see what we’ve got!” The two detectives head out of the bullpen and to the elevator. Jake catches Rosa watching them leave.

“Bye, Rosa! We’re going to a _video game store_!” Jake calls at her giddily.

“Have fun,” Rosa says, without a hint of sarcasm in her voice. “See if they have _Ides of Death._ I have to get my niece a birthday present and that video game might just be it.”

When Jake and Angelina arrive at the video game store, they are met by an employee who is stacking games on a shelf.

“Hey, can we speak to your manager?” Angelina chirps at him, flashing him a smile. Jake moves to reveal his badge, but Angelina swats his hand quickly.

“Not yet,” she hisses.

“Right. Okay.”

The employee leads them to the back of the shop with a rather confused expression on his face. He clears his throat and calls, “Miss Lee!”

A tall woman with light mocha skin and curly hair done into a ponytail walks out of the back room.

“There are some people who wish to speak to ya,” the employee tells her. Miss Lee looks pointedly at Jake and Angelina.

“Thank you, Carter,” Miss Lee says, dismissing Carter.

“Hi.” Angelina reveals her badge to Miss Lee, and Jake does the same while saying "W'ere the NYPD."

“Are y’all the police? Now, we don't have any crime here, do we?” Miss Lee asks.

“We’re detectives with the NYPD. Recently we have been investigating a couple of mugging cases, and with what we’ve found, we have reason to believe that the perp may be working in this store,” Angelina explains.

“So, we need to ask if there is anyone that you think that may be an employee here who can break into password-protected electronics,” Jake says. Miss Lee furrows her eyebrows.

“Well, I don’t know. But you can feel free to check everything out over here,” Miss Lee says. "We have security tapes in the back and a list of the employees if you need it."

Angelina nods at her gratefully. "Let's check everything out first," she say to Jake. this is 

They start walking through the store rather slowly, as Jake is looking through the video games. He spots one and picks it up enthusiastically. “Man, I remember this game! I played it when I was seven!”

Angelina take a closer look at it. “Jake, that’s a PG13 game. It also has… very graphic violence? You were _seven?_ ”

“Uh, yeah. My dad was never really around,” Jake shoves the game back where it belongs and stiffly walks through the rest of the store without looking at anything. Angelina frowns, but quietly follows him to the front of the store.

They walk out into the warm air, and make their way to the point that is right in the middle of the cafe and the video game store.

“If I was a mugger… If I was a mugger, what would I do?” Angelina mutters to herself.

“Ooh, yes! Let's do some role-play! If you were mugging someone, you’d want to take whatever you got and then run away, or hide,” Jake says thoughtfully.

“Yeah, and our perp could potentially be doing both. Oh!” Angelina spots an alley to the right of the video game shop. “Maybe we could look over there?” She points to the alley.

“Okay,” Jake agrees, and they cautiously walk into the alley. It’s very dim, and there are trash bags strewn around the dumpster.

“This is probably where they put their trash,” Jake says.

“Bingo,” Angelina whispers, gesturing to a strung ladder that is hanging off the side of the brick wall of the video game shop.

“Are we gonna go up there?” Jake whispers excitedly.

“Cover me,” Angelina answers, and makes her way up the ladder. She begins climbing it, and the ladder sways violently with her on it. Angelina hold onto it, cursing under her breath.

“Wait,” Jake says, and pulls out his phone. He taps it a couple of times until ‘Chandelier’ by Sia is playing. 

“What the hell are you _doing_ ?” Angelina asks, as the ladder sways. Jake holds up his phone. He’s recording her, with Sia singing _‘I’m gonna swing from the chandelier, from the chandelier’_ in the background.

“Not the time, Peralta,” Angelina says, rolling her eyes slightly. A smile bites at the corner of her lip, but she fights it. She steadies the ladder and begins to climb up. A few seconds later, Jake follows as Angelina makes her way to the top of the ladder.

“Woah!” he shouts, vainly trying to steady himself. Angelina is now at the top of the building, sitting with her legs swinging of the side as she waits for Jake.

“Hi,” she smiles as Jake climbs to the top.

“That was awesome!” Jake grins. "I totally felt like John McClane." They stand up, surveying the top of the building.

“Do you think anything’s here?” Angelina asks.

“Couldn’t hurt to take a look,” Jake says, and they scout around the roof, looking for any clues. A moment later, Jake discovers something. “Hey, Riley,” Jake calls, opposite to where Riley is bent down, uncovering something from the ground. “I think I found something,” he says, gesturing to a navy blue tarp from which a white garbage bag is peeking out.

“Yeah? Me too.”

Angelina walks over to Jake. A pair of black earbuds are dangling in her palm.

“Do you think that they’re the perp’s?” Jake asks, upon seeing the earbuds. Angelina shrugs.

“Maybe. There’s a chance.” She wrinkles her nose and lifts her hand up. “There actually might be some… DNA evidence that could be used to give away his identity,” she gags.

“Okay, but look at this.”

Jake uncovers the tarp. The white plastic garbage bag glistens as Jake carefully pulls open its red strings. Angelina crouches down beside him and her eyes widen.

Inside of the bag reside at least ten cell phones and one mp3 player.

“What do we do now? We could dust them for prints?” Jake suggests. He frowns. “Then we’d have to take all of this down _with_ us.”

“Yeah, and if we do that, and the perp comes back, he could know that we’re onto him. That wouldn’t be great, because he could… you know, run away to avoid getting caught.” Angelina supplies.

“But we could defs take the earbuds!” Jake says.

“Okay. You know what? Let’s take one phone. Which one looks like it might have prints on it?” Angelina pulls a small evidence bag from her pocket and carefully puts the earbuds in.

Jake fishes up a dusty-looking cell phone. He pulls a baggie out of his jacket and deposits the phone in. He pockets the baggie, and flashes Angelina a thumbs up.

She sighs resentfully when she looks at the ladder, which is their only ticket down the building.

“Isn’t there like an elevator or anything else we could use?” she complains. Jake grins.

“Nope! This is a cool ladder and cool way to get off of a building. You know what would be cooler? A zip-line off the building! We could _so_ John McClane it up," Jake envisions. “I’ll go first.”

With that, Jake and Angelina carefully get down the side of the building without falling. The evidence bag is safely tucked into Angelina’s pocket, and she pats it a few time to make sure that it is still there.

They get back to the precinct and give the evidence bags to Forensics, who promise that they’ll get results back tomorrow.  

Back in the bullpen, Charles has already gone home and Gina is nowhere to be seen. Angelina opens the chain of text messages that she has received in the past two hours.

 

**Charles: so was that weird or what**

**Jake: YES, CHARLES, THE TUNA SANDWICH WAS VERY WEIRD 🍔**

**Amy: Jake, that’s a hamburger.**

**Rosa: dork**

**Jake: your the dork**

**Amy: *You’re**

**106 minutes later**

**Jake: >file attached 00:31<**

**Rosa: ha**

**Terry: wtf are you two doing**

**Gina: thats a bop**

**Amy: What?**

**Gina: Chandelier by Sia**

**Charles: good job, jakey!! You get those criminals**

**Charles: jake you’re the best!**

**Charles: jake where did you go**

**Charles: jake?**

**Charles: jake**

**Charles: jake? where r u**

**Gina: chill boyle**

**Amy: He’s on a case, Charles.**

**Charles: bummer**

 

Angelina opens the video. Of course, it is the video that Jake took earlier of her swinging on the rope ladder. She elbows Jake, who is perched on top of the desk. 

“Ow! What did I do?” Jake rubs his arm and Angelina tilts her phone towards him.

“Very funny, Peralta,” Angelina grins.

“Hey, it _was_ funny! You were like Spiderman! But without any superpowers.” Jake says, and Angelina glares at him. “ I mean, you totally have badass superpowers, but not like, Peter Parker superpowers,” Jake says quickly. Angelina raises her eyebrows and shrugs.

“Okay, then,” she says. She adjusts her badge, which is attached to her belt. Rosa brushes past her and towards the elevator.

“Hey, Rosa! Where are you going?” Jake calls after her. Rosa turns towards him.

“Home.”

“Come one, Rosa! What about Shaw’s tonight? Drinks are on me!” Jake says.

"Hmm, I'm busy tonight. But I’m holding you to that offer later,” Rosa smirks. She disappears into the elevator without another word.

“You coming to Shaw’s for a drink?” Jake asks Angelina. She shakes her head quickly, assuming that Shaw’s is a bar.

“It's Monday,” she says hastily, glancing at her watch. “Thanks for the offer, Peralta, but I’ve really gotta run.”

And with that, Angelina leaves the bullpen and heads down to the garage where her car is parked. She drives herself home to her new apartment where she has moved in only less than a month ago. It is not far from the precinct, but it’s not extremely close, either. Nevertheless, she thinks that she's ready to call this new place of hers ‘home.’

Angelina calls her best friend when she gets home. She’s promised to give her friend all of the details about her first day at work, and she plans on doing just that.

“Hey, Stephanie! How’s it going?” Angelina says, smiling, when Stephanie picks up.

“Doesn’t matter. Tell me everything.”

So Angelina tells her all about her first day. She tells her how friendly Detective Jake Peralta is, and how she’s working her first case with the NYPD with him.

“Oooh, do you _like_ him?” Stephanie asks, with a energetic glint to her voice.

“No! Steph, he’s married. And do you know who his wife is? Her name is Amy, and she’s a sergeant.” Angelina proceeds to tell Stephanie all about Detective Rosa Diaz’s small grudge against her when she first arrived in the bullpen, and how Angelina can’t tell what Rosa thinks about her by now.

“My desk is right across from hers, too, so it’s not like I can _avoid_ her, either,” Angelina says.

“Oooh, tea,” Stephanie chirps from the other end of the line.

“And then they added me to a group chat. It’s wild.”

“Send me screenshots! But trust me girl, it cannot be more wild that _our_ group chat."

Angelina smiles. “Yeah. But seriously, I think that it was pretty cool for a first day."

Stephanie gasps in mock horror. “Are you _replacing_ us?!”

Angelina chuckles, pouring herself a cup of coffee. She adds a teaspoon of sugar and takes a sip of the warm beverage. “Of course not! How is the squad, anyways?”

“Really good, man. Oh my god. I so forgot to tell you. Captain Cameron is like, _seeing someone_.” Stephanie blurts out. Angelina nearly spits out her coffee in surprise.

“Really!”

“Yeah!”

“Who!”

“I don’t know! No one does!”

“Amazing. Tell her I say hi! Oh, and tell your boyfriend that I say hi, too. And Brendon. And Alyssa,” Angelina says, naming off her old coworkers from the previous precinct that she worked at, the District 10 in Chicago, or as they called it, D-10.

“I will,” Stephanie laughs. Angelina's known Stephanie ever since she was a junior in high school, and Stephanie a sophomore. Angelina made it into the force two years before Stephanie, but they’d been working together in the D-10 ever since Stephanie got in.

“Okay, girl. I’ll text you! Bye!” Angelina says, gripping her cell phone in one hand and coffee in the other. She takes the coffee down to her office/study, which was once meant to be a bedroom, but Angelina had decided to convert it. It's not like anyone else lived there, anyways.

Angelina turns on the dim lights and slumps down into a chair against the desk of mahogany wood. It has little designs and patterns printed along it, and Angelina traces her thumb across the designs until she hears her phone buzz multiple times.

Of course, it’s the Nine-Nine’s group chat.

 

**Jake: come on! nobodyys at shaws not even amy**

**Amy: Sorry, Jake, I had to work late.**

**Captain Holt:**

Angelina pauses for a second. She didn’t realize that the Captain was in this group chat as well.

 

**Captain Holt: Dear Jake, I am sincerely regretful that I was unable to make it. I am in fact enjoying a nice meal with Kevin, my husband, and Cheddar, my dog. My sincerest apologies, Raymond Holt.**

**Jake: you know you don’t have to text like that**

**Captain Holt: Dear Jake, I realize that. Sincerely, Captain Holt.**

**Gina: y’all bore me**

**Rosa: they really do**

**Charles: sorry Gina if youre bored then its your loss lololol**

**Charles: its really unbelievable that anyone could get bored by charles royal**

**Charles: royal not royal**

**Charles: **royal!!!**

**Charles: royal**

**Charles: b o y l e**

**Charles: see i was saying royal not royal**

**Charles: b o y l e not royal!!!**

**Charles: auto carrot sucks**

**Charles: auto carrot!!**

**Charles: a u t o c o r r e c t**

**Angelina: wow**

**Gina: yeah that was me i changed some stuff up in his phone lmao**

**Jake: gina!! where r u???**

**Gina: on my way, girl**

 

Angelina plugs her phone into her charger and lays it screen down on the surface of the desk. She leaves her half empty cup of coffee in the study and retreats to her own bedroom to call it a night. 

Her first day at the Nine-Nine was okay, and Angelina Riley resolves to decide to not hate her new squad. They seem pretty chill, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments/kudos appreciated!!  
> my tumblr: @darkrosemind


	2. the past on the pavement (below me)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the vulture?? that bitch. angelina keeps like a million secrets from everyone?? more than likely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> when i wrote this, i was partially v lazy and partially in a hurry so this is just the result sorry abt the crappy writing  
> chapter title is lyrics from roaring 20s by panic! at the disco

Gina Linetti isn’t really sure what exactly to think of the new detective. Sure, Angelina Riley was getting along fine with everyone else. Gina really hadn’t talked to Angelina much that day.

But then again she hadn’t forgotten Angelina’s name in less than five minutes, so that was a start.

She is sipping a margarita as Jake rambles on about Die Hard next to her. She only pretends to listen, as she's now pretty much immune to Jake’s rambling.

Somewhere along the conversation, Gina catches Angelina’s name. She holds up her hand to pause Jake.

“Backtrack. What did you say?” she demands, swirling the thin black straw in her drink.

“John McClane is literally amazing and I’m gonna be him next Halloween and Christmas and New Year and Easter and Thanksgiving-”

“No. Before that,” Gina orders.

“Angelina Riley’s seen Die Hard! Can you believe?” Jake exclaims excitedly. “I mean, she said she watched it in high school. But you know what? Movie marathon!"

Gina wrinkles her nose. “Yeah, no, I don’t care,” she informs Jake, and chugs down the rest of her drink.

“But I don't think that Rosa really liked her when she walked in for the first time. And then that whole thing happened in the break room and then i have no idea what happened, but then Rosa wasn’t as mean to her as she was before,” Jake continues.

“Hmm, drunk Jake really has all of the tea,” Gina says thoughtfully. Truth is, Gina often likes to look someone up before she gets even a little bit social with them. So that’s exactly what Gina did with Riley -- she tried stalking her on Instagram.

Maybe she should’ve tried twitter first, but the Instagram app was right there, and Gina decided to use it. She only had to type in the new detective’s full name (right after asking Charles what it was), before she got _numerous_ results.

Needless to say, Gina was surprised. _She_ was supposed to be the popular one in the precinct. She only got through two videos before she ushered the rest of the squad (minus Riley) in to see what she, Gina Linetti, had discovered.

Jake, Charles, and Amy had seemed extremely interested in Gina’s findings. However, Rosa Diaz didn’t seem so pleased over Gina’s accomplishment when Gina started the second video. And Rosa had also told Gina she wasn’t allowed to snoop into Angelina Riley’s personal business anymore.

At first, Gina was going to go ahead and ignore Rosa -- because what you put online _stays_ online forever so that anyone could see it. It was something Gina had learned in kindergarten (even though she had no idea what the internet was or what it could be) and if Riley had put something online, shouldn’t Gina be able to see it?

But she resolves to keeping her word to Rosa. It isn’t just that Rosa was super scary and wouldn’t hesitate to murder someone. Gina also values the bond that she shares with Rosa. She would never admit it, but Rosa is one of her best friends.

But Angelina Riley leads a freaking  _double life??_ Curiosity is biting at Gina and she's  _dying_ to know more.

Gina sighs and glances at her phone to check the time. “Jakey, my boy, it’s getting a little late and Captain Holt is expecting me to come into work tomorrow. _Again._ ”

Jake frowns. “You’re supposed to come to work every day anyways,” he mumbles sleepily. Gina frowns.

“Ugh. Okay, let’s go. I’m calling a cab.”

With that, Gina drags Jake out of the bar to flag a cab. They both clamber in once it arrives, and Jake almost immediately falls asleep while leaning on Gina.

“Oh, Jake,” Gina says, “you’re going to be _so_ hungover tomorrow.”

Jake squints at her. “I can’t! I still have that case thing with Riley. I’ll just take that herbal tea or whatever that crap is that Rosa drinks.”

“Yeah, okay,” Gina says. Being the more sober one, she pushes Jake out of the cab first when they reach his and Amy’s apartment to ensure that Jake will get home safely. Then, she feeds her address to the driver and they drive the seven minutes to Gina’s place.

She hands the driver a check that she has filled out in glittering blue gel pen. As the cab leaves, Gina stumbles up to her apartment and collapses right on top of her wolf bedspread with exhaustion. She doesn’t even bother to change.

Gina is rudely awoken at eight in the morning by her alarm clock. She is tempted to pick it up and throw it, but she’s heard enough stories from Jake including mishaps with alarm clocks.

Gina has to drag herself to work that morning, doing her best to ignore the light throbbing in the back of her head. She curses as she realizes that she has forgotten her coat. It is mid-November now, and it is getting a little bit chilly in Brooklyn. Yesterday was nice and sunny, but the weather was getting harsher at winter drew closer.

When Gina arrives at the precinct, Hitchcock tries greeting her hello, but Gina growls at him and he shrinks away.

Jake seems as preppy as ever. He wears a purple and blue flannel under a blue hoodie and a black leather jacket. He is having an animated conversation with Rosa, and he waves hello to Gina.

Angelina Riley is also already there. She is sitting with her feet propped up on her desk, with the cord work phone to her ear and a notepad on her black jean-clad thigh. She says something and writes on her notepad with a blue pen. When Gina squints a little bit closer at Riley, she notices something that she hadn’t seen before. Angelina’s dark wavy locks spill over her shoulders, and have a couple streaks of dark blue in the back. It is barely noticeable, but Gina sees it.

Gina saunters past all of this and right to Captain Holt’s office. She pushes the door open and sighs loudly, interrupting Holt as he is in the middle of a phone conversation. Holt take one look at her and pauses.

“Yes, I’ll call you back later. Thank you.”

He shuts the phone back into its receiver and turns to Gina. “What has happened to you, Gina? You look…. not your best.”

Gina sighs impatiently. “Captain, I am _always_ at my best. Don’t question that. But as of right now… we went to the bar last night and apparently _I_ am the one with the slight hangover,” she huffs.

“Ah, I see. You and Peralta went to Shaw's. I told him that going to Shaw's on a Monday night was not the best idea,” he says, and conjures a bottle of pills out from his desk. He hands one to Gina, who raises an eyebrow.

“Drugs, sir? Seriously? But really, how much would those sell for?”

“It is _headache medicine_ , Gina. And you can get a bottle for $5.99 at CVS,” Captain Holt explains with a sigh.

“Um, okay. Sure, if that’s what you say. Thanks,” Gina says. She takes the pill out in the bullpen after stealing a sip of water from Amy’s water bottle.

“Hi Gina! Guess what: no hangover!” Jake exclaims, pointing his thumbs to himself.

“Yeah, well _I_ do,” Gina groans. Jake pulls a face of sympathy.

“Get Holt’s headache meds. They work like a charm,” he advises, and bounds away from her and towards Angelina Riley’s desk.

Angelina is off of the phone by now, and furiously typing into her computer. She beckons Jake over as she looks at the screen.

“Forensics called back,” she explains. “And we have the identity of the Techno-Thief.”

“All right!” Jake says and lifts his open palm for a high five from Angelina. She hesitates for a moment, but then slaps his palm.

“Caleb Morris. Age 20, attends Brooklyn Community College.” Jake reads from Angelina’s computer.

“And he works at not the video game shop, but at the _cafe._ ” Angelina adds.

“His work shift starts at four; so we could get him while he’s at work?” Jake inquires.

Angelina shrugs. “Sure.”

Meanwhile, Rosa sits at her desk, listening into Jake and Angelina’s conversation. Near the end, she realizes with a scowl, that this conversation is not exactly worth listening into, as it's mostly about a boring perp. Rosa doesn't even know why she's listening in, but she snaps out of it and returns to her own work.

For a while, Angelina sits at her desk filling out a report. The bullpen is peaceful, as everyone is occupied with their own work and not minding anyone else.

A while later, the peaceful environment is interrupted by the ding of the elevator. However, it is not the elevator that has interrupted the peacefulness; it is the man _inside_ of the elevator.

“Where's Riley!” he inquires loudly. Rosa and Jake look up in alarm, and both of their faces tighten into scowls.

“What. Are. _You_. Doing Here.” Rosa spits in his direction. He turns to her with amusement etched on his face.

“Well, well, well. Diaz. Get back to whatever useless thing you were doing,” he orders. Rosa doesn’t tear her hateful eyes away from him.

“The Vulture,” Jake hisses under his breath.

The Vulture draw a small zip-lock bag out of his breast pocket, and with a jolt, Angelina recognizes the black earbuds that are encased inside. She stays silent and moves her eyes to her computer screen as to ignore The Vulture.

The Vulture doesn’t like the fact that she's deliberately ignoring him. He descends across the bullpen and towards Angelina's desk.

“What kind of a detective are you, rookie!” The Vulture leers with his voice raised. Angelina cocks her head to one side.

“Who, me?” she asks, with both eyebrows raised in surprise.

“This is not how you bag valuable evidence!” The Vulture is just one step short from shouting. Jake peers closer at the baggie.

“That’s all messed up-- Pembroke, you dirty cop-” he mutters, and The Vulture wheels towards him.

“Keep your ass out of my business!” he snaps, and Jake latches his mouth shut. Rosa’s fists are clenched tightly.

“I’m talking to _her!_ ” The Vulture spits. That seems to be enough to draw Captain Holt out of his office. He steps out with an air of seriousness.

“Detective Pembroke,” Captain Holt says in a controlled voice. “What is the meaning of this?”

The Vulture marches up to Holt, and shoves right past Holt and into his office. “Your new detective _sucks_ , Holt!” he shouts. Captain Holt has both of his hands curled into fists at his sides. Without another word, he quietly follows The Vulture in his office, and slams the door shut as a way to express his anger.

Angelina looks around, slightly nervous. Terry is shaking with anger. Jake is biting his lip, and Rosa’s gaze could kill a hundred of the most toughest people. Charles has spilled a large amount of coffee on the front of his shirt as he quakes with fear. Even Gina looks a little shaken. She is not on her cell phone as usual. Hitchcock and Scully had momentarily stopped snacking, but as soon as Captain Holt shut the door, they had resumed. Amy is nowhere to be seen, and Angelina envies her in that moment.

No one says anything, and all that they can hear is Captain Holt and Detective Pembroke arguing loudly. No one can make out what they are saying, so the bullpen is tense as everyone resumes working silently.

Angelina stands up and leaves to use the bathroom. She stands in front of the sink for a while, and her hands are slightly trembling.

She doesn’t know how long she’s been in the bathroom, because the door suddenly cracks open and startles her. She whips around to see a lock of dark curly hair before it disappears. Angelina turns around and tugs her fingers through her hair.

A minute later, the bathroom door bursts open and Rosa, Amy, and Gina spill into the bathroom. Angelina slightly panics and nearly bends down to pretend to tie her shoelaces before remembering that the brown boots that she is wearing today do not have laces.

Before she knows it, Amy has encased her in a hug. Angelina isn’t sure how to hug back, so she just lets Amy squeeze her tightly for a few seconds before backing away.

“I heard what happened,” Amy explains. She is no longer wearing her sergeant’s uniform, but instead, a light purple pantsuit that matches the purple in Jake’s plaid shirt. "The Vulture's an asshole."

Angelina presses her lips tightly. “Why’d he mess up the evidence? Why is he called ‘The Vulture’? And who even _is_ he?”

Rosa sighs before explaining. “He’s called The Vulture because whenever one of us is on a major case he swoops in when we’re very close to solving the case. He takes the end credits as if he did all of the work by himself, but _we_ should deserve the credit.”

“The Vulture is a major dick, sweetheart,” Gina simpers.

“And I have two theories on why he might’ve targeted you; made your evidence bagging job look bad,” Amy begins. “Either he was eyeing your case and for some reason isn’t able to steal it, or he really, really, hates new people.”

“Well, that suck,” Angelina mutters.

Suddenly, Gina’s phone rings and she fishes it out of her pocket to answer it.

“Sup. Linetti here…. Oh, hey, Captain! Uh, is Vulture still there… then no, Detective Riley is actually not available. Tell him sorry. Buh-bye.”

Rosa eyes Gina. “What was that about?”

“Vulture’s still there, Holt wanted to see Riley in his office, but The Vulture is still there, so I said no.”

Rosa nods approvingly. “Okay… are we just gonna wait here till Vulture leaves?” she asks, examining a nail.

Angelina shrugs. “I don’t know; maybe I could just go and face the guy.”

Gina gasps in horror. “Are you out of your mind? The Vulture is _a vulture._ Either he will menacingly hit on you, or he’ll try to get you to leave the Nine-Nine.”

“Uh, but Captain Holt. Also, if I don’t show up, that’s not going to look very good for me,” Angelina argues.

“I’ll go with you,” Amy offers. "I think I can intimidate the Vulture pretty well."

Angelina smiles but shakes her head. “That’s okay. Um, thanks, you guys.” She nods respectively at Amy, Rosa, and Gina, and turns towards the exit.

She pushes the bathroom door open and walks back to the bullpen. One quick look is all it takes to confirm that The Vulture is still in Captain Holt’s office. Angelina takes a deep breath and starts towards it.

Jake shoots her a sympathetic look. " _Good luck,"_  he seems to mouth towards her, and resumes doodling a tall building on a manilla folder.

Angelina doesn’t bother to knock on the door. She marches right into the office. “You wanted to see me,” she says flatly, addressing Captain Holt but ignoring the Vulture.

“Ah, yes, Detective Riley. Detective Pembroke here would like to have a word with you,” Captain Holt says in a controlled voice.

Angelina glances at The Vulture. He looks at her in an attempt to seem menacing.

“Do you know, rookie, what this is?” The Vulture hold up the evidence bag.

Angelina holds up a finger to pause him. “Detective Pembroke, do you exactly understand what a ‘rookie’ is?” She glances to Captain Holt, who seems to be listening. He gives her a short nod to continue. “A ‘rookie,’ per say, is a new recruit. I may be new to this precinct, but I assure you, I am _far_ from a new recruit in this field of work.

“What you hold in your hand is a piece of incorrectly bagged evidence, which you wrongfully believe is of my doing. I have been a detective long enough to know what has or has not been tampered with. That evidence bag, _has_ been tampered with. Perhaps you know who _did_ the tampering?”

The Vulture seems to be boiling red with anger. He clenches his fist around the evidence bag, and it opens with a pop. He is gritting his teeth, and Captain Holt’s approving nod of Angelina Riley’s short speech does not seem to help The Vulture’s case.

“How _dare_ you speak to me like that? Do you _know_ who I am? I have much more power than you!” Detective Pembroke whines. Then, he strokes his chin, dropping the evidence bag on Captain Holt’s desk. “Although, pretty sexy, care to have dinner sometime?”

Angelina gags. “Yeah, _no._ Bye.” She glances towards Holt, and a short nod from him is all she needs as permission to leave.

She whirls around and leaves Holt’s office. The Vulture stares after her. “This isn’t over yet! I’ll get my revenge someday!” he calls.

Angelina strides over to where Rosa, Gina, and Amy are waiting for her.

“So?” Rosa asks. Angelina shrugs.

“I laid out the facts. He got angry. And then, like Gina said, he tried asking me out for dinner. Which was _gross,”_ Angelina shudders.

“How did Captain Holt take it?” Amy asks eagerly.

“Uh, he didn’t say very much, but I’d like to think he was okay with me,” Angelina quips.

“Okay, cool. This got boring real fast. B _ye!_ ” Gina says and sashays away.

A little bit later, Jake and Angelina set off to catch their perp. It is just about four in the afternoon by now, and Caleb Morris is sure to be at his part time job as a barista by now. Angelina and Jake throw on their NYPD vests before entering the cafe.

“Okay, be cool, _”_ Jake mutters to Angelina. She makes no comment and pushes her way to the barista as if she is ordering a drink.

“Hi,” Angelina says cheerfully. “My partner and I were just stopping for a coffee break-” she pretends to squint a little closer at the barista, who has gone considerably paler.

“Oh, you wouldn’t happen to be Caleb Morris, would you? I’ve heard _all_ about you.”

Caleb is frozen in place. It is clear that he is slightly shaking.

“I know how you can’t get a girlfriend, so you mug girls around here so you can break up with their boyfriends. Because you’re _jealous,_ ” Angelina leers.

There are beads of sweat running down Caleb’s face. “I- I don’t know what you- what you’re talking about,” he stutters.

Jake steps forward. “Oh yeah, buddy? I think you gotta come with us.”

In that split second, Caleb turns and flees. Angelina jumps over the counter, tipping over an iced coffee. Jake follows her with an “oh yeah!” and they chase Caleb.

Other cafe employees watch in mixed expressions of horror, amusement, and excitement. They turn out of the way as Jake and Angelina hurry past. One employee mutters, “this is not what I expected for today.”

“‘This Is Not What I Expected For Today,’ title of your sex tape!” Jake calls as Caleb slips out through the back door.

Caleb is fast, but Angelina is right on his heels. She dodges pedestrians back and forth.

“Jake!” she calls. She points to the opposite street, and Jake understands. He runs across the street and a car narrowly missed him. He would have so gotten a jaywalking (or in his case, a jay _running_ ) ticket under normal circumstances.

Jake sprints up to where he can intercept Caleb, and runs across the street again. A couple of cars honk at him, and Jake waves. “Just-trying-to… do my-job,” he pants.

“‘Just Trying To Do My Job,’ title of _your_ sex tape!” Angelina says in delight as Caleb slams into Jake. Jake grins.

“Wow, you learn quickly,” he says, slapping a pair of handcuffs on Caleb. Then, Jake reads the Miranda rights to Caleb before leading him to the police cruiser and driving back to the precinct.

They get a very quick confession from him, and Angelina is smiling as she walks out of the interrogation room. As she walks to her desk, The Vulture walks past her.

“I’m watching you, Riley. I am _watching_ you,” he sneers, and walks, no, _struts_ into the elevator.

Rosa turns her nose up in disgust as she shoves past The Vulture to grab her jacket from her desk. He turns and glances at her in amusement.

“Hey, Diaz. What are you up to tonight?” he asks cheekily. Rosa pulls out a knife from god knows where, and twirls it around.

“I. Am. Busy.” she states, still toying with the knife. The Vulture shrinks away and throws his hands up.

“Maybe another time, then?” he winks. Rosa flips the knife in her hand, catching it successfully without splitting her palm open.

“No.”

“Fine.” The Vulture hassles his way into the elevator, and disappears, much to Angelina’s relief. She softly curses him under her breath and grabs her cell phone off of her desk.

Sitting down in her chair, she opens up a chain of texts with a contact that is named **xander.**

 

**Angelina: are you in today**

 

It take maybe five minutes for "Xander" to reply.

 

**Xander: i was in yesterday but you didn’t show up**

**Angelina: you didn’t say i had to**

**Xander: yeah thats on me**

**Xander: are you coming in today**

**Angelina: i think so**

**Angelina: i feel like it**

**Angelina: i want to see the new studio**

**Xander: its cool. I was here last week**

**Xander: i think you’d like it**

**Angelina: so can i drop in a while later**

**Xander: pls do. I’m lonely**

**Angelina: ok. I’ll be there**

**Xander: bike or car**

**Angelina: car**

**Xander: okay gurl**

**Angelina: never ever type out ‘gurl’ ever again**

**Xander: srry, girl**

**Angelina: i’ll be there in a while**

**Xander: see ya**

 

A couple of minutes after five o’ clock, Angelina finds herself in her sleek black car, which is one that she's cherished for three years. She starts driving with an unfamiliar address typed into her GPS. 

She is heading the opposite way from where she lives. Angelina turns on the radio and flips through a couple of stations, until she hears Dua Lipa singing ‘New Rules.’

A while later, Angelina is pulling into the parking lot of a shiny modern studio building. She hurries into the building and stop at the front desk. A bored looking man is sitting there. He whistles through his teeth as he types away at his computer. Angelina clears her throat and he looks up. 

“You must be Riley, eh?” he asks. “Mr. Evscott said that you’d be in.”

“Yeah. Where is he?” Angelina inquires.

“Go down the right hallway and turn into the door marked 32A,” the desk-man says. “Your first time here, I presume?”

“Yeah. Thanks!” Angelina calls as she dashes into the hallway. She nearly barrels into room 32A, where she sees a man with short blond hair and rectangular glasses framing light brown eyes. He is sitting at a wide desk, poring over sheets of paper, but he stands up when he sees Angelina.

“Well,” he says, eyes gleaming. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

“Hi, Xander,” Angelina smiles. “Well, I’m here now, so tell me. How nice is this studio?”

“It’s a beauty. Like, what we had back in Chicago was really awesome and I’m gonna miss it, but look at _this._ ” He spreads his arms out.

“Okay. And that door leads to the recording studio, right?” Angelina asks, stopping at a silver door and putting her hand on it.

“Yeah. Do you want to see it?” Xander leads Angelina into the room. She looks around it, a small smile playing on her lips.

“And… is it ready to record in?”

Xander frowns. “Uh, well, yeah, I guess.”

“Let’s do it, then. Can I get a piano keyboard in here then…” Angelina quickly dashes around to set up the studio. Xander watches her with mild amusement.

“Are you sure you’re ready? What even are you going to do?” Xander asks.

“I have ‘Gravel To Tempo’ by Hayley Kiyoko down.”

“And… is this like just a sudden mood, or…?”

“I have all of the chords memorized and my day at work was shitty, alright? I wanna do this,” Angelina tells him, vividly remembering the Vulture screeching like the bird he is .

“Really? It’s only what, day two for you at… where was it, again? I remember the D10, but what’s the precinct called again?” Xander scratches the back of his neck in an effort to remember.

“The Ninety-Ninth precinct,” Angelina reminds him.

“Yeah, that. How is it?”

Angelina tells him about how work is for her so far, and how she has wrapped up her first case already. She tells him about the jerk that The Vulture was to her and how she wanted to punch him, but that would not look very good in front of her boss.

“Wait, so technically, the detective part is Work Part 1 for you, and this music thing in Work Part 2, so does that make me your boss in Work Part 2?” Xander asks quickly.

“You’re my manager, Xander. Also moral support.”

“I can live with that, I guess. But what about your coworkers from Work Part 1? What are they like?”

“Uh, they’re _nice._ Like, they’re _really_ nice to me. But they barely even know me so like, _why?_ I mean, I’m kinda playing along with the whole super friendly vibe and all, but it’s confusing, I guess. Can we record that song now?”

Xander chuckles. "You have crazy weird energy, Riles. You're just so eager to make music and you just randomly have song chords memorized. But you know, I love it."

Angelina makes a face at him.

And in two minutes, Angelina is propped into a stool with a piano keyboard in front of her. Her fingers move rhythmically along the keys as she sings.

“ _I’ll do this my way_

 _Don’t matter if I_ _break_

_I gotta be on. my. own._

_Lost in this feeling_

_Don’t never need a reason_

_I gotta be on. my. own.”_

And suddenly Angelina is lost in the music part of her life. It's the part of her life that she keeps separate from the other half, the law half. Her life is split in the middle and she is the only reason that the two are connected.

Her squad back at the D10 in Chicago knows about this part. They know that she makes music sometimes. They know that her recording deal allows her pretty much extensive freedom; enough freedom to work two jobs at once, giving Angelina kind of her dream life. 

Angelina hadn't exactly told her old squad right off the bat; only her former Captain knew. And just like that,  she isn't planning on telling the Nine-Nine anytime soon. Only Captain Holt knows.

Her label company had decided to move to New York, and that was one of the main reasons that Angelina had suddenly come to Brooklyn. She didn’t want to let go of the other part of her life, as it was pure luck that they had offered her such an independent and freedom-allowing deal.

She keeps this other, _secret_ , part of her life from nearly everyone else. Of course, there are the people who  _do_ know,  _fans_ and all (you know, just like, a fifth of the nation or something. It's infuriating to the people who like Angelina's music because they have no idea what kind of a person Angelina could be. All she does is make the music, put out the music, and occasionally do live performances. Interviews are mostly out of her league).

Angelina finishes her song and steps out and to the recording area, where Xander is standing. He cockily grins at her.

“So, I forgot to press record…”

Angelina moves to punch him in the arm, and he throws his hands up.

“Kidding! I’m kidding. Anyways, give me a few minutes and I’ll put up the cover,” Xander says.

Angelina spends the next hour exploring stuff around the new studio. She finds that it is not much different from the studio back home in Chicago, but it’s more fancy. Needless to say, she likes it.

When Angelina goes home, the streets are nearly empty and the streetlights glitter in the dark. She drives contently, mostly happy with her new life in New York

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading it this far!!!
> 
> follow me on tumblr: @darkrosemind


	3. i'm feelin' electric tonight (cruising down the coast goin' bout 99)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> shaw's bar? more like a crazy night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> haha i'm trying to reveal more of oc's background and life also i wrote in some kevin/raymond bc i could not resist also same with the peraltiago stuff  
> chapter title is lyrics from summertime sadness by lana del ray

A few days have passed since "The Vulture Incident," and Jake wakes up lazily on that Saturday morning. He turns to the side, and Amy isn’t there, just as he had expected. Amy always wakes up early, even on weekends.

“Aaamy,” Jake calls drowsily. “Ames.”

Amy walks into the bedroom. She is still in her pajamas (which consist of a pair of sweatpants and one of Jake’s oversized t-shirts) and flashed Jake a smile. “Hey babe. What’s up?”

“Don’t make breakfast,” Jake groans, sitting up. He recalls the last time that Amy tried surprising him by making breakfast. He had received an omelet of... well, Jake doesn't even know.

“I can make coffee, can’t I?” Amy asks, pulling a face. She climbs back into the bed next to Jake, and he puts an arm around her.

“No offense, but I’ll make breakfast. Anyways, Amy, it’s only eleven o’ clock. Who wakes up so early on a weekend?” Jake complains. "Come back to bed."

“It’s almost noon, Jake. _Everyone_ is awake,” Amy tells him.

Jake’s phone buzzes. He grabs it off of the nightstand and opens up the Nine-Nine group chat.

 

**Gina: >image attached enigma.png<**

**Gina: iggys woke up early**

**Gina: and she's super hyper now**

**Rosa: shes wearing the shirt i got her**

**Rosa: nice**

**Terry: maybe you could bring iggy over to play with ava later**

**Charles: or amy could have a baby and then iggy could play with little jake!!!!!!**

**Gina: ill bring iggy over after dance to play with ava**

**Terry: cool**

**Jake: wait rosa got iggy a shirt**

**Jake: that shirt depicts a lot of violence**

**Jake: is that shirt okay for a baby**

**Gina: i mean you watched die hard when you were like ten so**

 

Amy leans over to read the messages behind Jake’s shoulder. She ends up just resting her head on Jake’s shoulder as she laughs at the picture of The Enigma with applesauce smeared all over her face.

 

**Jake: yeah bc its a great movie**

**Jake: we should show iggy die hard**

**Gina: no sorry iggy already loves mean girls so**

**Jake: that is a good movie but die hard is better so**

**Rosa: whatever**

**Rosa: jake we need to talk**

**Jake: abt what**

**Rosa: work stuff paperwork the precinct work**

 

* * *

 

Rosa is curled up on the couch in her apartment when Jake calls her. 

“Did someone die?” is the first thing that he asks.

Rosa scowls. “Your case. The one with Riley," she says with mild annoyance.

“We already wrapped that up. Oh, and Amy says hi,” Jake says.

“I know. But The Vulture was going after that case. Did you know anything about that?"

Jake frowns. “I don’t know. But he went and messed up Riley's evidence bagging job? That wasn't cool.”

“She handled it fine. But she’s going to have to keep an eye out, because Pembroke's probably gonna be after her. You know, revenge,” Rosa informs Jake.

“Revenge?”

“Yeah. Revenge. He didn’t like the way Riley handled him.”

“Riley's new here though? Does she know that the Vulture's gonna be out for her?” Jake asks, concern creeping into his voice.

“I’d expect so. Vulture said it straight to her face,” Rosa tells him.

“Riley’s fine, though,” Jake says. "She's a good detective. Vulture's probably just jealous"

“There’s something off about her, Jake. Seriously,” Rosa interrupts. "She's definitely hiding something."

“Yeah, didn’t you see the videos that Gina was showing us? Why’d you make us turn them off?” Jake asks.

Rosa scowls again. “That’s privacy invasion. Shut up, Peralta. Besides, the real reason that I needed to talk to you was because I have a lead on our case. I just wanted to tell you that we gotta look out for Riley. She doesn’t know what she’s doing.”

She hangs up the phone and tosses it on the other end of the couch, when it rings again. Rosa squeezes her eyes shut before glaring at it to see who it is. She picks it up almost immediately as she sees who is calling her.

“Hi. Yeah, I’m free tomorrow. Bye, Alexa.”

She hangs the phone up with a smile on her face.  She receives a text from Gina, who asks if they can have family game night tonight.

 

**Rosa: not tonight. Jake is buying us drinks at shaw’s**

**Gina: what abt 2morrow**

**Rosa: i’m busy**

**Gina: with what? Spill the tea girl**

**Rosa: i have a date, gina**

**Gina: ooooh its alexis isnt it 😍**

**Rosa: alexa**

**Rosa: yea tell anyone and they’ll never find you again**

 

Alexa, Rosa's girlfriend, is a civilian who Rosa had nearly hit with her motorcycle a while back when Alexa was crossing the street. Only Gina knows about her, during an incident in which Alexa and Rosa had been secretly meeting in Babylon.

It was, well, awkward.

* * *

Meanwhile, Angelina Riley has been up since eight o’clock, rummaging through unpacked boxes that are in her living room. She really needs to get to more unpacking, because half of the time, Angelina can’t find anything that she is looking for, including her favorite black denim jacket, the one with  roses stitched onto the left pocket.

She pulls out a checklist from one of her boxes that she hadn’t meant to even put in the box, and reads through it.

_Unpack_

_Upgrade apartment security system_

_Check out new studio_

_Check out precinct_

_Call Andrew_

Her eyes widen at “ _Call Andrew.”_ Andrew is her older brother, who lives in suburbia Brooklyn with his wife and three daughters. Angelina’s nieces. Nieces that she hasn’t seen in four years. Angelina curses before grabbing a pen and scrawling out most of the items on the list.

She scrambles to find her phone and quickly calls calls her brother. “Text me your address, okay?” she says as soon as he picks up.

“What what what? You’re in Brooklyn _already?_ ” he asks in bewilderment.

“Yeah. I thought I told you when I would be coming ‘round?” Angelina says. She holds the phone between her ear and neck and holds her pen in between her teeth while shuffling through the boxes on the floor.

“Uh, Angie, you didn’t give me a particular date. I didn’t even know you were serious,” Andrew tells her. "All you did was text me 'might move to Brooklyn ttyl' like six months ago."

“Really? I’ve been here for like two weeks already,” Angelina replies, stuffing things that she has strewn all over the floor back into a box.

“Ange _l_ _ia_ Stella Riley, I am going to _kill_ you when you come to see me in… ten minutes? How far away do you live?” Andrew says.

“Mmmm, I don’t know. Text me your address, Andrew, and I’ll be right over,” Angelina says again. He sighs and hangs up, and it’s only a matter of seconds before Angelina receives a text from him containing his address.

She dashes to grab a coat and runs out to the parking lot. For a moment, she is conflicted to whether she should drive her car or ride her motorcycle, but chooses to hop onto the bike, because she knows that Andrew's kids would _love_ that.

It is chilly that morning, but Angelina doesn’t mind it very much, because it's the first time that she's riding her motorcycle in New York, and she’s enjoying it.

Andrew’s house is about twenty minutes away, and when she’s halfway there, Angelina realizes that she has forgotten to grab her helmet in her hurry. Andrew’s going to have a _fit_ over that. He loves playing the role of overprotective older brother.

When she gets there, Andrew is sitting on the doorstep with his phone out. He slips it into his pocket as she dismounts her bike and runs up to him.

He wraps her up in a tight hug before holding her shoulders and shaking his head at her. “You're an idiot. You forgot to visit your own _brother,_ you forgot to put on a helmet, what are you going to forget next, Angie?”

She laughs. "In my defense, I was pretty preoccupied with a _lot_ of things. Moving ain't easy, y'know." Andrew rolls his eyes and leads her inside. The house is warm and toasty, and Angelina kicks off her sneakers and leaves them by the door. Andrew leads her into the kitchen, and she takes in the look of his house.

“Where are the kids?” Angelina asks.

“The _kids?_ What about _me?”_ Andrew’s eyes sparkle as he pops some toast out of the toaster. “The kids are all in their rooms. Sleeping, like normal people on Saturday mornings. Although, I think, seeing you would be pretty useless, because they wouldn’t recognize you. You haven't come to see them in four _years._ "

Angelina swats his arm playfully as a young woman stumbles down the stairs. Her dirty blonde hair is put in a messy ponytail and she pushes her glasses up her nose.

“Hey Andrew, what’s for-”

She stops when she sees Angelina.

“Hi, Ave,” Angelina says and stands up.

“Angelina? Is that you? We haven’t seen you in years. Or am I still dreaming?” Avery, Angelina’s sister-in-law mumbles.

“It’s not a dream. I’m really here. Surprise!” Angelina smiles. 

“Okay, cool. I'm kind of really sleep deprived so I'm just gonna drink some coffee, wait for it to kick in, you know.” She heads towards the stairs and stands at the bottom before yelling. “Emerald! Veronica!”

“Call Sel for me, okay?” She tells Andrew. Andrew a door and stands at the top of a set of stairs. He leans down and opens his mouth to shout.

“Selina!”

They hear a distorted “Coming” from down the stairs, and Angelina laughs.

Selina is the first to emerge into the kitchen, and Angelina gathers her niece into a hug. “Hi,” she says. “Remember me?”

“Oh, you're my aunt. I guess I've seen you in pictures.” Selina shrugs. "Dad talks about you a lot."

"Yeah, but Ronni and Emmi probably won't recognize you," Andrew interjects. 

Veronica and Emerald are heard coming down the stair, as they are fighting loudly. “ _I_ wanted the hello kitty blanket last night! Emmi _took_ it! Daddy!”

Both of them stop short when they see the stranger standing in their kitchen.

“Who are you?” Six-year-old Ronni bluntly asks, staring at Angelina. Emmi squints at Angelina, and then looks to her parents for answers.

“Well, I haven’t seen you guys in like four years, but that’s not an excuse to not recognize me!” Angelina says.

“Grandma?” Ronni says.

“Okay, do I look old enough to be your _grandmother?_ I feel so insulted right now,” Angelina says, glaring at Andrew. He throws her a ‘I told you so’ look.

Ave sighs impatiently. “Guys, this is your Aunt Angelina. You haven’t seen her in four years, blah blah blah, but she’s here now.”

"I like your gloves," Emmi says, staring at Angelina's dark maroon finger-less gloves.

“Thanks. I have to catch up on your lives, because you’re gonna be seeing me around quite a lot,” Angelina tells her with a broad smile on her face.

“Did you ride a _motorcycle_ here?” Selina asks in astonishment, looking towards the window by the front door.  Angelina nods.

“Wow. Dad-”

“Don’t be getting any ideas, now. Your aunt is very irresponsible because she didn’t even wear a helmet, and that was a very wrong, very dangerous thing for her to do,” Andrew says, his dark brown eyes twinkling. Angelina scrunches up her face at him.

“How long are you staying?” Emmi questions.

“Like in New York in general? I don’t know? As long as I can,” Angelina says. Ronni smiles at Angelina shyly, and Angelina pulls her forward. “Wow, the last time I saw you, you were practically a baby!”

“She still is,” Emmi simpers, and Ronni sticks her tongue out at Emmi.

“Girls, girls, be nice,” Ave cuts in wearily. “I’m gonna fry some eggs and make some coffee. Angie, you want breakfast?”

Angelina is fast to shake her head no. “I had breakfast a while ago. Although I’d like a cup of coffee, if that’s okay.” Ave nods, and Andrew pulls Angelina by the arm.

“We’ve got to catch up. Come on.” He leads her outside and they sit on the steps in the chilly morning weather. “Tell me _everything._ ”

So Angelina tells him what has been going on. She talks as if she is narrating a story, and he listens intently. She tells him about how her first week was with the Nine-Nine, and how The Vulture had immediately hated her.

Angelina is talking about how she went into the new recording studio, when Andrew cuts in with a broad smile on his face. “So… are you, you know, seeing anyone?”

“No! Damn it, Andrew.”

“There’s no special person in your life?” Andrew presses.

“Um, I have my best friend, I have my dream jobs, and I have my brother and my nieces who don’t even know me. I don’t _need_ anyone else. I’m perfectly content with my life,” Angelina says, feeling heat rise into her cheeks.

“Angie, when was the last time you went on a date?”

“I- I go on dates sometimes! Stop talking about this!” Angelina says, flustered.

“Now, I find that _very_ hard to believe, because you, Angie, are _not_ that kind of person who casually dates around. You crush for a while, and then you decide to go on a date with someone if you really think that you like them. This I know about you,” Andrew grins.

“I date people!”

“ _date people_ ,” Andrew mocks. “Weren’t you seeing that one lawyer girl a while ago?”

“Yeah, but that was in like college, Andrew.  Long time ago. Keep up with the times. And I did _not_ come here to talk about my dating life, Andrew. Let’s talk about you. How’s the New York Times?”

“I’m a journalist there. I do journal stuff.”

“And how’s Ave?” Angelina asks.

“She’s a doctor. She does doctor stuff. Medicine medicine.”

Angelina narrows her eyes at Andrew, and he laughs. “I’m just kidding! Well, not about Ave. I have no idea what doctors do except for cure sick people. Anyways, work has been really good! I’m actually working on this huge project right now….

Angelina settles back to listen to her brother talk. She realizes just how much she’s missed him, and a content smile crosses her face.

* * *

 

On the other hand, Captain Holt is organizing case files at his desk when Kevin comes into the study holding a mug.

“Would you care for some tea, Raymond?” he asks. A smile nearly flutters at the corner of Holt’s mouth as he looks up at his husband adoringly.

“Yes, thank you, Kevin. A cup of tea will do me some good this morning.”

“Ah, Raymond. Are you still thinking about your newest recruit? I would advise to not overthink it too much. After all, you select only the best of the best,” Kevin says, his eyes flickering to the files spread out in from of Raymond. He takes seat across from Holt and and reaches for Holt’s hand.

“I do not doubt my selection, Kevin. I merely worry about her well being. She has gotten onto the wrong side of Detective Pembroke, and it is only her first week. Detective Diaz does not exactly adore her either,” Holt explains, looking down at his and Kevin’s intertwined hands. "I can sense some competition on Diaz's side, at least."

“We do not talk about work often, Raymond, but I think that we are able to discuss right now. Adoring people is not in the nature of Detective Diaz. How did Detective- ah, what is her name?”

“Riley,” Holt supplies.

“How did Detective Riley handle Detective Pembroke?” Kevin asks.

“Very smartly, if I must say so myself. Detective Pembroke did not enjoy that, and then proceeded to ask Detective Riley on a date.” Holt’s nose turns up in disgust as he vividly recalls the memory.

“I should think that Detective Riley will soon get along just fine with everyone. Even Diaz, will perhaps, grow on her.”

Kevin nods, passing Holt a cup of tea.

“I am more concerned about her double job. Her previous captain has told me that Detective Riley does not let the two sides of her life overlap each other, which is why she has not told the rest of the squad about her work in the music industry; although I am sure that Detective Riley will take care of her duties as a detective formidably,” Holt speaks on. He pauses to take a sip of the scalding hot tea.

“Has Gina not figured it out?” Kevin asks, amusement weaved into his tone.

Holt frowns. “Not that I would know of. This is surprising, because Gina usually manages to find out things that are not even on the internet.”

“Well, it is what it is. By the way, Raymond, I left the completed crossword on your pillow. The topic was Latin Suffixes.”

* * *

 

As Captain Holt is enjoying a morning with Kevin, Charles Boyle is listening to his son list off thing that he would like for his birthday, even though it isn’t for at least a few more months.

“Come on, Nikolaj! Easy bake ovens are the _worst!_ I don’t get why you would ever want one! We have a _real_ oven right in the kitchen!” Charles belittles.

“But Papa, they’re so cool! Roger from karate class has one!”

“I am _not_ sending you to karate class for you to become friends with a _peasant_! You should be friends with someone cool and amazing!”

“Like Uncle Jake?”

“Exactly! Exactly like Jake!” Charles beams at his son. “When mini-Jake comes around, then you guys are gonna be _best_ friends!”

Nikolaj frowns, and then continues on with his wish list. “I’d also like one of those destroyer trucks, you know, the one that was in the commercial after the Lego Movie last week? Those are so cool. Anastasia from Baking 101 said that her mom got one for her truck collection.”

Charles sighs audibly, pouring himself a cup of coffee. “Tell you what, bud? We’ll see when we go Christmas shopping in a few weeks.”

Nikolaj pumps a fist into the air. “Awesome! We can look at the remote controlled drones then, too! You know what? I’m thinking of getting Iggy a Spider-Man action figure for Christmas. I showed her Spider-Man Homecoming last time Aunt Gina let Cagney and Lacey and Ava and me over. Cagney and Lacey _love_ Peter Parker. They want to marry him.”

It was true that Gina had let the kids come over and play with Iggy, but she had dragged Amy over to help watch the kids. Amy had agreed, and Gina vividly remembered how she had blushed when Gina asked if Amy was trying to get some experience in taking care of kids.

After Gina had Iggy, she had discovered that she had a soft spot for kids. Iggy had really changed her life, and even though her father was an insufferable moron, Gina is glad to have Iggy.

* * *

 

Some days, Gina has a sitter come over to watch Iggy. Other days, Gina busies herself with caring and fussing over her daughter. Today is one of those days. She has dressed Iggy in a shirt given to her by Rosa and is spoon feeding Iggy while checking her twitter feed.

She finds herself absently searching for Angelina Riley’s twitter account, because she has _everyone_ at the Nine-Nine’s twitter. So she definitely has the right to find Angelina too. Gina has to remind herself that this isn’t snooping; it’s just searching for someone on the internet to further befriend them.

She doesn’t even realize that maybe, she’s getting a little bit too endorsed in this search when she finds an account. The name is simply Riley, and there is a small blue check next to the name, identical to the one Gina has next to her name.

Curiosity gets the best of her and she clicks on the account. There are blurry pictures of someone singing into a mic on a stage, and with a jolt, Gina realizes that it’s Angelina Riley.

For a moment, Gina isn’t sure what to make of this, because it can’t be possible; Riley works at the Nine-Nine. She can’t be a pop star. It’s just doesn’t make sense. Maybe Riley just has amazing Photoshop skills.

But as Gina scrolls through Riley’s account, she realizes that _this is real._ But it just doesn’t make any sense. Sure, she herself is a part-time dancer, but how can someone be a whole-ass part-time music artist? And have a pretty good amount of followers??

And Riley, she’s been keeping this secret from them, but Gina _knows_ now. Maybe she should confront Riley. Or, maybe she should file the information away under ‘blackmail material.’ Gina is toying with these options in her head before it occurs to her that maybe she should tell her friends. They should have known when Gina found the other videos nearly a week ago.

But then she thinks of Rosa. Technically, in Gina’s mind, she hadn’t been snooping, but Rosa— Rosa was really scary, even though she was more fond of Gina than other people. Rosa had told her not to poke around in Angelina’s business like that, but Gina knows that it was because of the short clip of the pride parade.

Rosa can be very sensitive when she wants to be. And since Rosa fully understands situations like these, she doesn’t want Angelina Riley to be outed to her new coworkers by the internet. What if Riley’s not ready for them to know? Rosa gets it. The only way that they should know anything about her sexual orientation is if she says something herself.

Iggy giggles, interrupting Gina’s train of thought. “Mommy, look!" she squeals, pointing to an orange ladybug walking across the table.

“Hey, Ig. Hold that smile,” Gina says, flipping quickly through her apps and to her camera. “My followers _love_ you. Who knew you could gain so many followers from posting cute pictures of my kid?”

Iggy says something incomprehensible under her breath. Gina spoons some more oatmeal into the toddler's mouth.

 

**Jake: u guys wanna like meet up 2nite**

**Jake: mayb @ shaws**

**Rosa: you owe us drinks**

**Jake: wut**

**Rosa: you said so last week peralta**

**Jake: oops**

**Jake: so evry1nes in?**

**Amy: You don’t need to abbreviate everything in such an atrocious way, Jake.**

**Holt: Dear squad, I will be delighted to join you all at Shaw’s to celebrate Detective Riley’s arrival to the Nine-Nine. Sincerely, Raymond Holt.**

**Jake: ofc!!!!**

**Angelina: what**

**Jake: when i type ofc i mean ‘of course’ nothing else**

**Angelina: whats going on exactly**

**Gina: you have just been invited to a party by the captain!!!**

**Gina: guess who the guest of honor is?**

**Gina: hint hint— its u**

**Angelina: but**

**Gina: your captain has invited u to a party!!! 🎈🎉✨🎇🎆🎊🎈**

**Angelina: fine text me the address**

**Amy: So you’ll be there, right?**

**Angelina: fine whatever**

 

* * *

Angelina is texting from her brother’s living room, and she is suddenly very irritated when she sees the (mandatory!) invite to a bar from her coworkers. She doesn’t want to turn them down, because Captain Holt himself has said so that he will be there. 

Andrew sits down on the arm of the armchair the Angelina is curled up in.

“What’s up?”

Angelina shoves her phone in his face. “Look at this! Now I have to go to a bar party tonight because my captain like invited me or something. And I don’t even like drinking! Also, I don't wanna be the only sober one at a bar party, but I also don't wanna down ten shots like an animal."

"You were the sober one at River's all the time back in Chicago," Andrew says nonchalantly, referring to Angelina's old squad's regular bar, River's.

“Yeah, because they  _knew_ that I wasn't drinking. What am I gonna tell these new people, huh? And they're probably gonna judge me," Angelina says hotly.

“Since when did you start caring about other people's opinions so much?” Andrew asks. "Just tell them the truth.:

“Oh, yes." Angelina scrunches her nose. "Yes, I'll just march in there and tell them the whole story! Oh, when I turned twenty-one, my idiot brother told me that it was more fun drinking straight from the bottle! And then I tried it, and I got this horrible feeling and ended up smashing the entire bottle because addiction runs through the family and I was afraid of that!" 

“And everyone respects that, Angie!" Andrew exclaims. "You don't have to say all of  _that,_ whatever that was! Just tell them that you don't want to!"

Angelina sighs. "Yeah, whatever."

Selina appears from around the corner. “Is Aunt Angie staying for dinner tonight?”

Angelina audibly sighs. “I wish I could, but I have to go to a party with my coworkers.”

Selina nods, as if she understands completely. “You’re with the NYPD now, right?” she asks, a spark of interest gleaming in her eyes.

“Yup,” Angelina says, holding two thumbs up. “It’s cool.”

“Can I ever have a ride on your motorcycle?” Selina asks quickly, looking at Angelina. A smile bursts onto Angelina’s face and she looks at Andrew. He’s frowning.

“Sel, look, that’s pretty dangerous-”

“I have another helmet at my apartment, so… how about tomorrow?” Angelina cuts in, and Andrew throws her a look. Selina’s jaw drops and she smiles with her teeth.

“Really?”

“I mean, sure. She’ll be fine, Andrew. Trust me.”

Emmi and Ronni suddenly appear behind Selina. “Can I come too?” Ronni asks eagerly. Andrew squeezes his eyes shut. When he opens them, Ronni is waiting with eager eyes and Angelina is casually examining her nails.

“Uh, no. Baby, you’re a little bit too young and it’s very dangerous. Maybe in a few years,” he says to Ronni’s disappointment.

“Well, what about me?” Emmi asks testily. The corner of Andrew’s mouth turns down. “I’m kidding, Dad. I don’t wanna ride on a death machine.”

Selina rolls her eyes and Angelina glances at her watch. “Okay, look, I’ve got a few things to do, so I’ve got to go, but I’ll be back tomorrow sometime to give Sel a ride.”

An hour later, Angelina is in her own apartment, working furiously on unpacking. She glances at her phone every so often, and concludes that everyone is coming to the stupid bar party.

That night, it takes Angelina two tries to get to the bar. She is riding her motorcycle again, without a helmet again (Not her fault-- she totally couldn't figure out which box it was packed in). Everyone is already at the bar, including Captain Holt, and they welcome her in. Angelina comes in with a tight smile on her face, and Jake beckons her over to sit with him and Gina.

“Hi! Do you want anything to drink?” Jake asks. “I’ll get it for you.”

Angelina quickly turns down his offer, and Gina wrinkles her nose. “Ugh, I was looking forward to seeing tipsy Angelina! Damn it, Riley!”

Rosa slides into a seat across from Angelina. “What’s up.”

“We were just discussing how Riley isn’t gonna get _drunk_ ,” Gina fills her in.

“Why? Is it something personal? You don’t have to say, I mean,” Rosa says, stirring her drink. Angelina shrugs, nervously twirling a stray thread from her shirt around her finger.

“Something like that,” she says without offering an explanation. Amy walks by and stops at their booth. Angelina and Jake slide further in to make room for her, and Charles comes trailing after her. He scoots in next to Rosa and Gina.

“So, you’re having fun at the Nine-Nine, right?” Charles asks, sipping a pink beverage.

“Yeah. It’s nice here,” Angelina says, examining her nails. They are freshly polished dark purple, and Angelina runs the tip of her fingers over them to feel the smooth, purple surface.

“Don’t you want anything to drink?” Amy asks, and Angelina wants to roll her eyes because it’s the _third_ time someone has brought this up.

“You know what? Yeah, I’d actually like a glass of water.”

Amy looks a little taken aback, but she quickly recovers and calls for a water. A while later, Angelina is sipping water through a black straw, and Amy has take two shots.

“Oh, she’s getting a little loud. Here, honey.” Gina hands Amy another shot and Amy drinks it up.

“You forgot about dancey pants Amy,” Rosa accuses, and thrusts another small glass at Amy. Jake hurriedly passes her another one after she takes her fourth with a horrified expression on his face.

“Amy-pervert,” Gina comments. Amy gulps down her fifth drink and smiles at Jake.

“Hey, there, Mr. Sexy.”

“I thought fifth-drink Amy was overconfident Amy!” Jake says, mortified. Amy has now turned to Charles and is commenting on how he should give her all of his open cases. Charles pushes his pink beverage at her instead, and Amy drinks the rest of it.

Almost immediately, she closes her eyes and sighs. “The world sucks. Nothing is good,” she groans, and leans heavily on Angelina. Angelina lets Amy lay her head on Angelina’s shoulder, and turns her eyes over to Jake with great effort.

“Stealin’ your girl, Peralta,” Angelina jokes, and Jake smiles back at her.

“As long as you give her back,” he returns.

Amy lifts her head up and sighs deeply. “I want to go home,” she murmurs, and slides out of the booth. Angelina gets out to let Jake help Amy, and sits back down when he says something about taking Amy home.

As soon as they walk off, Rosa and Gina strike up an animated conversation about Hogwarts houses. “Mmm, Charles is definitely a Hufflepuff,” Gina says.

“Darn right I am!” Charles says.

“Jake is a Gryffindor. Amy’s a Ravenclaw,” Rosa says, and Gina nods.

“What about you? Which Hogwarts house are you in?” Gina asks, eyeing Angelina.

“And don’t you dare say that you’ve never heard of Harry Potter. We _will_ disown you,” Rosa threatens. Angelina raises her eyebrows.

“Of course I’ve read Harry Potter.” She glances behind her only to be met with the sight of Jake and Amy sitting on bar stools and kissing. She turns back quickly. “I’m a Slytherin.”

Gina fist bumps her. “Aaay, me too, girl!”

Rosa squints her eyes at Angelina. “Really? Okay. I’m a Gryffindor.”

“Okay, so our little Slytherin club is made up of me and Angelina; Gryffindors are Rosa, Jake; our little Hufflepuff squad is Charles and Sarge; and naturally, Amy and Holt make up Ravenclaw,” Gina drawls, taking a gulp from a flask that she had pulled out of her purse. "And who knows where Hitchcock and Scully are."

“Hufflepuff squad. I like that,” Charles says. He checks his phone, and his eyes widen. “Oh my gosh, I told Genevieve I’d be back home by now. I gotta run! Bye!” Charles says and leaves the booth.

Gina laughs after him. “Really? What time even is it?”

Angelina shows Gina the time on her phone, and Gina inhales deeply. “Shit. The sitter leaves in ten minutes. I have to go. Bye, Rosa. See you guys _later_.” She sashays out of the bar, leaving Rosa and Angelina by themselves.

It turns out that tipsy Rosa is a very _talkative_ Rosa. For a minute, Rosa feels like doing karaoke, but Angelina quickly talks her out of it, and turns the subject over to gruesome cop stories, which Rosa could talk about for hours without end.

“And then, I grabbed his arm, but he stabbed himself in the stomach because he’d rather be dead than in jail, but joke was on him! He didn’t die! Ha!” Rosa narrates, and Angelina pulls her to her feet.

“You are mega-drunk and I am going to call you a cab,” Angelina decides.

“Why not just drive me," Rosa slurs drowsily, leaning heavily on Angelina.

Angelina concludes that drunk! Rosa is also filled with crazy ideas.

“Because you’re insane.” _Because I didn’t bring my car and you’re drunk and I’m afraid of taking you home on my motorcycle because you might let go and fall off and then it would be my fault if you got hurt._

“Fine.”

A cab pulls up and Rosa rattles off a street name for the cabbie to drive her to. As soon as the cab pulls away with Rosa safely inside of it, Angelina calls it a night and rides home on her motorcycle. 

Fun times with the Nine-Nine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here's my tumblr (if you care!): @darkrosemind


	4. i'm a wanderess (i'm a one-night stand)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a one-night stand or a two-week fling? a messy haircut and going undercover with Peralta? Angelina's really getting nicely adjusted to the Nine-Nine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title is lyrics from hurricane by halsey

Angelina Riley is sitting in the bullpen at her desk. She is typing away, but what she is doing is far from work-related. Google Maps is pulled up in front of her and she is looking up locations in Brooklyn. Everyone around her probably thinks that she is trying to track the location of a perp, but Angelina is looking for somewhere that she can _go_ tonight.

Shaw’s bar is out of the question because it is a Nine-Nine favorite and Angelina wants to be on her own. So after work, Angelina scribbles down an address on a post-it note and sticks it into the pocket of her leather jacket.

She would’ve prefered to ride her motorcycle to the beach she was planning on going to, but Angelina only drives her car to work, because she feels that her motorcycle is another piece of her personal life and there is no way that she is willing to let her personal life and work life come into contact with each other.

Angelina gets to the beach just in time to watch the sunset. She sits in the sand fully clothed, and watches the sky streak with pink and orange. The beach is pretty much deserted and the sand is cold underneath Angelina’s fingers.

Angelina is startled as someone taps her twice on the shoulder. She whips around to see a woman with evenly tanned skin and short brown hair looking down at her. Angelina quickly stands up and faces the woman. She is a little bit taller than Angelina, but not by much.

“Hi?” Angelina says. It is true that Angelina is finding the woman to be a little bit attractive.

“I’m Dalia,” the woman says, and offers Angelina her hand to shake. Angelina shakes it, and tells Dalia her own name.

“Any chance you might be interested in women?” Dalia asks, and for a split moment Angelina feels like laughing until she hears Andrew’s voice in her head.

_You’re not the kind of person who casually dates, Angie. You only date people that you really, really like._

She takes a deep breath. “Yes,” Angelina says to Dalia. She _can_ date people casually. She can date someone that she’s never even met, right?

Maybe Angelina’s trying to do this just to prove her brother wrong, but she agrees on getting dinner with Dalia, a pretty woman that Angelina has never ever met.

But three hours later, things heat up and they find themselves in Angelina’s apartment.

The next day, Angelina is a little late for work, but she is trying to hide a smile as she walks into the bullpen. Jake rolls his chair over to her desk.

“He-ey, Angelina! You look a little fresh today!” he says. Angelina tilts her head.

“Hi, Jake. What’s up?”

“Haha, just discussing how you were late for the first time today,” Jake says, grinning from ear to ear. Across from Angelina, Rosa scowls deeply, and Gina walks over to them, phone in hand.

“So, what was it? Did your alarm break? Were you at the bank?” Jake asks eagerly. Angelina stares at him with her mouth slightly hanging open.

“Yeah, did your car run out of gas? Did you meet Rihanna?” Gina asks without looking up from her phone. Angelina suddenly feels extremely put on the spot and takes interest in her nail polish, which is chipping at the edges.

“Were you with someone?” Rosa asks casually, and it’s all she has to say in order to see the heat rushing to Angelina’s cheeks. “Ha. I win. Give me my thirty bucks, Peralta,” Rosa says triumphantly.

“Aw, man!” Jake says in defeat, and pulls out his wallet. “You’re lucky I got my financial problems in check after marrying Amy, Rosa, because if I didn’t, then you’d never be getting any of this money.”

He stacks three tens and hands them to Rosa, who pockets the bills gleefully. Angelina rolls her eyes and logs in on her computer.

The next two weeks fly by pretty quickly. Dalia barely texts her― Angelina only receives texts from Dalia asking if they can meet up later. Angelina hasn’t ever even seen Dalia’s place. They barely talked too much― Angelina didn’t even know what Dalia did for a living.

So one Saturday night, Angelina wakes up in the middle of the night to find that Dalia has left sometime in the middle of the night. She turns onto her side and buries her face in the pillows, and suddenly, Angelina feels so alone, because Dalia is not the kind of person that she can be with.

Andrew was right. Angelina _can’t_ casually date people. It’s too difficult for her. She doesn’t know what kind of person that she might end up with, and suddenly, Dalia is here, and Angelina isn’t feeling anything except for numb.

Maybe what they have is good, but it comes with an absence of feel. Angelina can’t do this with her anymore. Angelina needs something more from a person― more feeling, more commitment, and Dalia isn’t the person for her.

So after a sleepless night, Angelina texts Dalia and asks her if they can meet up over coffee. Dalia agrees, of course, and so Angelina tells her that they aren’t meant for each other and how she’s sorry about this, because Dalia seems like a wonderful person. Dalia takes this all in with a calm smile and agrees with Angelina. They part ways on good terms, and that is all Angelina needs to feel renewed.

Later that day, she goes down to the studio and covers ‘Strangers’ by Halsey and Lauren Jauregui.

Before long, her finger is hovering over the ‘delete’ button on Dalia’s contact. After an hour of antagonizing, Angelina finally deletes Dalia’s contact and she feels as if she can breathe properly again.

Monday at work, Jake asks her how the person she is with doing. Angelina shakes her head with a sad smile, and Jake understands instantly.

Rosa is eyeing them as Jake comes to the conclusion that Angelina is no longer seeing someone, and curiosity is sparking through Rosa. She forces herself to turn her mind away from the topic of Angelina’s ex, and opens a case file.

By now, Angelina has worked a few cases by herself, and it’s been a pretty good haul at the Nine-Nine. At the morning briefing, Holt assigns her to a case by herself, and then when he looks the files over again, he tells Jake to partner with her on the case.

Jake flashes a crooked smile at her, and the corners of Angelina’s mouth twitch up into a small smile. They look over the files together after the briefing to see what it is that they’re facing.

Jake wrinkled his nose when he sees what the case is about. He shows Angelina, and she wants to retch.

“Cameras in hotel rooms? That’s pretty sick.”

“Yeah, and then they put the videos up online, which is mega-sick,” Jake agrees, pulling something up online. Angelina is about to start gagging and immediately looks away.

“Gross.”

“Title of their sex tape,” Jake says grimly, and Angelina hits him in the shoulder.

“Okay, if we want to crack this case, we’re gonna have to go undercover. We only have reports of this crime, and not enough evidence. We have to get into those hotel rooms without being suspected and find the cameras for ourselves,” Angelina says.

“Oh, okay! My name is Duncan McGloop-”

“Choose a _real_ last name, Peralta,” Angelina says, rolling her eyes.

“Hey! Duncan McGloop is _extremely_ offended. Anyways, Duncan is a young professor of economics who just got married to Morgana Amin-McGloop, who is a― hey, do you speak another language like Spanish or anything by any chance? I took Spanish in eleventh grade, but my teacher never showed up to class, so it didn’t really work out,” Jake narrates.

Angelina purses her lips. “I speak Italian and Urdu. Take your pick.”

“Oooh, you speak _three_ languages! Noice! Anyways, so, Morgana Amin-McGloop is an immigrant from a small town in Italy, where she painted the stars every night before moving to New York so that she could paint the city skyline. There, she met Duncan McGloop at an art convention that took place at the college that Duncan was a professor at,” Jake rambles.

“Okay, that actually wasn’t a bad story. I kinda like it, actually,” Angelia says, impressed.

“Yes!” Jake pumps his fist into the air. “Okay, so Morgana and Duncan are on their honeymoon. Let’s book a room at that disgusting hotel. Oooh, I get to speak in an accent!”

“ _Why?_ Duncan has been American for his whole life. If anything, _Morgana_ should be the one to speak in an accent!” Angelina protests. Jake slumps in defeat.

“Fine,” he says, handing Angelina his cell phone as he pulls up the hotel phone number on the computer in front of them. She takes the phone more gleefully than she had intended, and dials the number.

“Hel _lo?_ My name is Morgana Amin-McGloop. I wanted to see if there is a room that I may book for my husband and my honeymoon?” Angelina says in a neat Italian accent.  “Yes. Yes. Tomorrow night, we will arrive,” she says and hangs up. She hands Jake his phone back.

“How was your accent so good? Are you _really_ Morgana Amin?” Jake says, impressed.

Angelina shrugs. “I have a lot of relatives who speak in accents,” she says simply.

“Okay, so tomorrow night, we’re gonna go undercover. What time?” Jake asks.

“Eight o’clock,” Angelina says.

“I’m going to go tell Amy,” Jake says, and heads for the elevator. Angelina watches him go, and pulls her own cell phone out of her pocket. She calls Xander.

“Hi, Xands! Remember how I said that I would come in tomorrow? I think I’m actually gonna be busy and I’ll come in today instead,” Angelina says.

Xander groans. “You always mess up my schedules, Riley,” he scolds.

“Sorry! It’s just a case that I’m going to be working on late. I’ll come in today. Besides, you still love me.” Angelina coaxes. She hears his sigh that signals that he’s given in, and smiles.

“Fine. Don’t make me regret this,” Xander says, and hangs up.

Rosa is watching Angelina quizzically from across the desk. “What was that about?” she asks suspiciously. Angelina looks up at her in surprise.

“Just a friend,” Angelina mutters, and turns to her work. Rosa watches her for a minute before returning to her own work.  

The rest of the work day flies away quickly, and Angelina finds herself back home at her apartment around ten o’clock PM. She realizes with a start that she hasn’t eaten for a while, and starts preparing a bowl of ramen noodles.

She falls asleep late that night, as somehow, Angelina ends up binge-watching One Day At A Time on TV. She is sprawled out on the couch fully clothed when she is woken up. Her alarm is screeching in her bedroom, so Angelina stiffly picks herself up and walks to her room to turn the alarm off.

She quickly showers and changes into different clothes, when her cell phone rings. Angelina frowns when she sees that she doesn’t recognize the number, but picks it up anyways.

“ _Ciao?_ Angelina?” A voice says with uncertainty. Angelina wants to scream, pull her hair out, throw her phone across the room, and jump out of the window and splat onto the pavement when she hears that voice. For it is the voice of her mother, someone that she has not spoken to in many, many years. “Angelina, is it you? I would really like to know if I’ve got the correct number, _caro._ ”

Angelina wants to tell her _don’t call me that_ but her voice fails her. “Mother,” she says stiffly, holding her phone a small distance away from her ear as if it is poisonous.

“I wanted to talk to you, Angelina. We have not spoken for so long. You are still my daughter, even though… ah, you are like how you are,” Angelina’s mother says.

“Stop.” It barely comes out as a whisper, but Angelina needs her mother to stop talking, because she has heard that same voice _killing_ her through all of her teenage years, which had not exactly been _joyful._

“ _Caro,_ I needed to check on you. It is still my job, as a mother. How are you doing?”

“Fine,” Angelina says in a cold tone.

It seems as if her mother is trying to make conversation, because she keeps on trying to prompt Angelina to talk, to speak to her, about _anything,_ and how life has been― but Angelina refuses to give in and listens to her mother indifferently.

“Ah, I have not seen you in such a long time. Tell me, how do you look right now? Have you been growing your hair long and beautiful, like how it always looked nice? Because, dear, shorter hair really does not suit you.”

At this point, Angelin is done. “I’m fine, Mother, really, thank you for trying to check on me, but I am _fine._ I have to go to work.”

“Oh, work. You are still in that dangerous job-”

Angelina cuts the line and angrily stuffs her phone into the pocket of her denim jacket. Her mother’s words aggressively swirl around in her head and Angelina numbly takes a deep breath. _You will only look beautiful with long hair._

Angelina opens a drawer at her night stand and pulls out a pair of sharp green scissors. She sets to work, cutting her hair even shorter than it used to be. Her work is a little bit choppy, but Angelina has been cutting her own hair since she was eleven, so the scissors fit in her hand perfectly and she cuts with ease.

When she is satisfied with what she has in front of her, Angelina drops the scissors onto her dresser and sweeps up the hair on the floor. She has completely cut out the dark blue dye that was in the back of her hair. Her hair now dips above her shoulders, and Angelina angrily blinks tears out of her eyes before setting off for work.

“Why are you late _today?_ Charles asks as she arrives to the bullpen, before his eyes settle on her new hairdo. “Oh! You got a haircut! It looks neat,” he says. Angelina offers his a small smile, before dropping her bag on the floor and sitting down at her desk.

She catches Rosa’s eye and quickly looks away, logging into her computer. Rosa sees Angelina’s hair and finds that she can’t stop staring at it. Not that it was _bad_ or anything. Strangely, it was… _good._ It looked nice on Angelina. It was a little… adorable in the feisty way that Angelina was. Not that Rosa was saying that Angelina was adorable or anything. Gross.

Rosa quickly comes to her senses and scowls her thoughts away. She turns back to her work, as Jake comes over to sit with Angelina so that they can work on their case.

According to Jake, Angelina is far from a bad detective. She doesn’t look too bad either. Rosa wonders if she’d ever be able to get a case to work on with Riley to really see how skillful she is.

Gina is tapping away on her phone, occasionally looking up to keep an eye on Riley. Gina has still kept Riley’s little secret to herself, but Gina doesn’t feel too sure about what she should do. For now, Gina just suspiciously keeps an eye on Riley and keeps her discoveries to herself.

Amy has been swinging around the Nine-Nine more often. She is excelling at her duties as a Sergeant, and everyone is proud of her accomplishments and happy to have her around. Today, she pulls up a chair at Rosa’s desk and offers to help Rosa on whatever case that she’s working on.

Rosa lets her, but only because the triple-homicide case that she’s looking at is a tough one. They work on Rosa’s case while Angelina and Jake work on their title-of-their-sextape case across from them.

Angelina and Jake both end up taking a much longer lunch break than usual because they both know that they’re due for a long investigation later that night.

Angelina finds herself walking through Brooklyn and peering into the shops and local places. When she walks back to the precinct, she is carrying a crimson-colored candle and a necklace that she has purchased.

When she gets back to her desk, Jake is nowhere is sight. “Where’s Peralta?” Angelina asks. Rosa looks up. She is kicked back in her chair with both feet up on the desk.

“He’s taking a break,” Rosa says. “Heard you two are acting out a honeymoon.”

“What? Oh yeah, something like that for our case,” Angelina replies distractedly.

“He told me all about it. Douglas McGloop, getting married to Morgan Amin,” Rosa goes on, adjusting her watch on her wrist.

“Morgana,” Angelina corrects.

“Didn’t know you spoke Italian,” Rosa continues.

“Well, my father’s family is from Italy. I speak Italian,” Angelina mutters, sitting down. Rosa smiles, but not in a horribly mean way. It is a classic ‘Rosa smile’ and Angelina finds herself cheering herself in her mind for finally getting a Rosa smile.

Jake and Angelina dress up for their undercover positions. Angelina wears a navy blue dress with a black leather jacket over it, hiding her badge in her sleeve. Jake puts on a collared shirt with jeans, which is just about as nice as he’s going to ever dress.

They find the hotel and Angelina steps forward to check in. “My name is Morgana Amin-McGloop―” She has to refrain from laughing at the absurd name, but she goes on. “I have booked a room, no?”

The deskman flips open a book. “Yeah, Amin-McGloop, whatever a kind of name _that_ is. Room 439, on floor six. Here is your keycard.” He passes a small card to Angelina and she takes it. _“Grazie._ Come on, _tesoro._ Let us go now.”

She beckons to Jake, and they talk once they are in the elevator. “Well, I think that went smoothly,” Angelina says.

“Yeah, you did good, _Morgana._ Anyways, what’s tesroro?” Jake asks.

“ _Tesoro._ It means darling in Italian,” Angelina says as the elevator beeps. Angelina and Jake find the room and enter it. Jake looks around.

“Not bad, not bad,” he says, setting down the suitcase that they have brought along for show. Angelina has a simple silver band around her ring finger, which is also just for show.

“Okay, so now, here’s the plan. We find the camera, we arrest the bad guys. Okay?”

“Cool,” Jake agrees. “Cool cool cool cool cool cool.”

The two of them split up around the hotel room, searching for where the camera could be. “Well, the video was taken from a higher angle, so…” Angelina pulls a small black box-type object up, but it doesn’t move.

“Let me get a picture for evidence,” Jake says, and snaps a few pictures of the camera.

“Good thinking, Peralta.” Angelina eyes the hotel phone that is set in its reciever. “So… we could call the manager or someone or whoever is in charge here?” she suggests.

“Smort. Let’s do that,” Jake says, still examining the camera that they have discovered. “And remember, you’re still Morgana!”

“Got it,” Angelina says and dials front desk. After a few seconds, someone picks up. “Hello? Can I speak with the manager? Yes? Are you the manager? Can you come up to Room 439? We are having a small problem and we would like some assistance.”

She hangs up and looks to Jake. “That was easy,” she says, and Jake scratches his chin. He sits on the edge of the bed and Angelina swings herself up on the desk, and they wait for an excruciating nine minutes for the manager to come knocking on the door.

He is a tall white man with oily blond hair and sharp blue eyes. Angelina lets him in, and as soon as he is fully inside of the hotel room, Angelina swiftly shuts the door and stands in front of it. The manager turns around in surprise, and suddenly he is being handcuffed by Jake.

“NYPD, you have some questions that you gotta answer for us.”

They take him to the interrogation room back at the precinct. Mostly everyone has gone home, except for Captain Holt and Rosa, who is still working late on her triple homicide.

“Rosa! I didn’t expect to see you here so late!” Jake says.

“Yeah, well this case is a bitch. I was gonna meet up with my girlfriend later,” Rosa says gruffly.

“Oh. Okay. We’re just gonna go interrogate out guy… “

Fifteen minutes later, Jake is standing at the interrogation table and Angelina is standing with Captain Holt and watching him through the two-way mirror. Jake seems to be making little to no progress, so Captain Holt calls him out of there and sends Angelina in.

She starts politely with him, introducing herself as Detective Riley and why he has been brought here. The manager grunts and doesn’t say a word.

Two minutes later, Angelina is running her fingers through her hair, when the manager says something. “You know, your hair looks good short, girly.”

“Oh?” Angelina leans forward in interest. “What makes you say that?”

“I see a lot of women who have short hair that ain’t suit them. But you’re good.”

“And where do you see these women?” Angelina asks.

“Around.”

“Around… here?" Angelina says abruptly. She holds up a printout of the website to his face. The shock registers on the managers face and stays there for more than just a moment.

“How’d you find it-”

“So you admit that it is yours,” Angelina says.

“No! How'd you find it?"

"You're really implying that it's your website," Angelina tells him. He scowls. "How do you know about this website, sir?"

"It's from a family friend," he growls.

“Great. Thank you for your confession. We’re shutting you down. And for the record, _all_ women are beautiful, long hair or short hair or no hair. And it is not in your place to decide what makes a woman beautiful, and you cannot wrongfully judge anyone based on your stupid opinions.” Angelina turns and flourishes out of the interrogation room, with a smile on her face.

“Nice job, Detective Riley,” Captain Holt says. “I am impressed.”

Jake fist bumps her, and they call it a night. (Angelina keeps the cheap fake wedding ring in a shoe box on the top shelf of her closet marked ' _we built this box, on memories,'_ which is where she keeps all of her souvenirs from all of her expeditions.) 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> disclaimer: i do not speak italian. i have been relying on google translate. sorry. also sorry if this chapter sucked. i've been trying.
> 
> tumblr: @darkrosemind


	5. the universe aligned (oh, with what i had in mind)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A special weekend is near, but first, Angelina Riley's going to try tackling a new matter: bonding with Rosa Diaz.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title is lyrics from 'four pink walls' by alessia cara

A while goes by and suddenly Angelina is handed a case to work on with Rosa Diaz. Rosa scowls at first, but she soon becomes immersed with the case, which is a set of multiple apartment robberies. All of them are supposedly connected somehow, and it is up to Rosa and Angelina to find out who the perp is.

Angelina has been looking at the M.O. of the perpetrator, when she suddenly feels a memory pulling in the back of her head. With a jolt of nostalgia, she realizes that she had worked on a case very similar to this one. The M.O. of the man that she had arrested matched the M.O. right in front of her.

But that was back in Chicago. It couldn’t be the same man here, in Brooklyn, could it? It is very possible that the man is out of prison, but Angelina will have to find the case file to confirm it.

She has a big box of old case files in her study at home, so she is looking through them to find the one that she needs. After finding it, she makes a few calls to her former coworkers back in Chicago, and then one to Rosa.

Rosa is reluctant at first, but she agrees to come over to see what Angelina has discovered. Half an hour later, Angelina hears loud distinct rapping on the apartment door. Angelina runs to open the door for Rosa, and steps aside as Rosa awkwardly comes into the apartment. Rosa stands in front of the door as Angelina shuts it and surveys the apartment.

“Hi. Would you like some lemonade?” Angelina asks politely.

Rosa is still looking around the setting. “Uh, no thanks. How is your place so _nice?_ ”

Angelina bites her lip. “Um, my dad’s an engineer and my mom used to be a professor. Rich parents.”

She coughs, making sure that Rosa is satisfied with her story before brightening. “Well, I do have a lead on our case, and I’d like to share that with you. Come on,” Angelina says, and walks down a small narrow hall before pushing a door open.

Rosa blanches for a moment, thinking that Angelina is leading her into her _bedroom_ , but quickly clears her face and mind when she sees that it is a office-like room. A large mahogany desk is in the corner. It was papers and folders strewn all around it, as well as office supplies. Rosa notices a small flag that is perched in an empty pencil holder. A narrow purple stripe follows a cerulean blue stripe, with a rose pink strip at the bottom. Rosa quickly looks away from it and back at Angelina who is on her knees and rummaging through boxes that are in a sliding-door closet.

Angelina pulls out a binder and hops over to the desk, pushing a few folders out of the way before laying it flat and flipping it open.

“You’re such an Amy,” Rosa mutters before walking over to see. Angelina looks her in the eye.

“Oh, shut up, Diaz.”

This momentary change in demeanor catches Rosa off guard and she has to bite back a smile. Angelina opens a manila folder that is attached to the binder, and reveals a mugshot of a bald man.

“This, is Ford Carpenter. I arrested him a couple of years ago. The M.O. that our unidentified perp has matched Ford’s M.O exactly. And if I’m correct, his prison sentence ended about six months ago,” Angelina says in a business-like tone. 

Rosa nods. “How can you confirm this?”

Angelina whips out her phone and smiles. “I’ll do that just now.” And suddenly she’s calling someone and fighting back a smile.

“Hi, Steph. Actually, can I talk to you about a case?” Angelina presses her lips together and tucks a lock of short hair behind her ear. “Yeah. A case I worked a while ago. You can confirm that Ford Carpenter’s prison sentence ended six months ago, right? Yeah, I have a hunch that he’s in Brooklyn now. Can you and Kai check up on his address? Thanks. Bye. Yeah, I know.”

Rosa refrains from staring at Angelina Riley as she puts her phone down on the desk. She turns to Rosa to inform her about the call.

“That was my… partner in Chicago. She and another colleague are going out right now to check on Carpenter’s well being. They’re going to call me back later.” Angelina opens up a crimson red laptop and quickly types into it. “There are a couple of other possible suspects that I came up with, but my instinct says that it’s Carpenter.”

She shows Rosa that laptop screen and Rosa takes a seat next to her and resolves to work on the case with this detective. This detective, Detective Angelina Riley, is such a mystery to Rosa and yet such an _open_ _book_. Her whole life is literally splayed out in this study. There are pictures of her with people pinned to a bulletin board, ticket studs from concerts and movies, and so much more.

What Rosa doesn’t know, is that one of Angelina’s earliest discovered philosophies is that, sticking as much as possible to the truth is the easiest way to lie.

Angelina is making sure that Rosa doesn’t know much of anything about her life, only what she is putting out for Rosa to see. Rosa has no idea about the double life that Angelina lives. And Angelina has no intention of letting anyone from the Nine-Nine (excluding Holt, of course) know about this.

As long as Rosa believes that Angelina has everything about her right there on display for everyone to see, she should have no suspicion about her.

Angelina Riley really is a Slytherin, right down to the heart.

Just as Angelina has thought, Rosa has no suspicion and is instead endorsed in working on the case. A while later, there is nothing left to discuss about the case, and the two find themselves flickering through some of Angelina’s old cases and laughing and telling each other stories about the past.

So Rosa is a little bit horrified at herself because she _never_ lets herself open up this much with a person. But Angelina… with Angelina, Rosa finds herself losing self control and lets herself slip and talk about _everything._

And does Rosa regret it? Not a single bit. She’s enjoying herself, kicked back in a chair and laughing and flipping through case files and trading cop stories and some time in the middle Angelina has put on music and it feel nice to be there.

A while later, Rosa stands up abruptly after glancing at her watch.

“Are you leaving?” Angelina asks.

“Yeah. My girlfriend’s coming over tonight,” Rosa says, shrugging her leather jacket onto her shoulders. Rosa hadn’t even realized that she had taken the jacket off. She sees a flash of disappointment flicker across Angelina’s face, but it is quickly replaced by a smile.

“Okay. Bye. See you tomorrow,” Angelina says, and Rosa walks out of the study. Angelina hears the door shut after a few seconds and immediately calls Stephanie back.

“Hi! If you want an update about your case, you’re gonna have to wait a little bit, because Kai and I are just running a check-”

“Steph, I don’t care about that. I’ve got to tell you something else,” Angelina interrupts.

“What?”

“So Detective Rosa Diaz was just over-”

“The smart, mysterious badass?” Stephanie asks.

“Yup. We were working on that case. But then we got a little bit sidetracked and-”

“You kissed?” Stephanie says in glee. Angelina huffs, kicking her feet up on top of the desk.

“No! I just- never mind.”

“What do you mean? I’m sorry, okay! Please tell me what you were about to say. I won’t say anything, I promise,” Stephanie begs across the phone.

“Okay, fine. We were having fun and telling each other cop stories and just talking and she was like, really opening up and then she said she had to go and she has a _girlfriend_ and I can’t believe I think she’s kinda attractive,” Angelina says in one breath.

“Just _kinda_ attractive? C’mon Angie, you’re definitely nursing a full on _crush_ on Diaz. Just admit it,” Stephanie says.

Angelina’s face grows hot. “But I don’t have a crush on her. You can think that someone’s attractive and not have a crush on them,” she protests.

“Okay, whatever you say. Sure you don’t have a crush on her. Why’d you call me just to tell me about her? You’re always calling me and then all I hear is, ‘Detective Diaz did _this_ today! Detective Diaz probably hates me! I don’t think _Detective Diaz_ likes me! Detective Diaz! Diaz Diaz Diaz!”

“I don’t do that!” Angelina says firmly into the phone. “I just think that she’s pretty cool.”

“You mean pretty _and_ cool.”

“Yeah, okay. Bye, Steph. I’ll see you next week.”

“Wait _what?”_ Stephanie says indignantly into the phone, but Angelina cuts the line only to receive thirteen texts from Stephanie.

 

**Stephanie: what do u mean**

**Stephanie: seriously angie tell me**

**Stephanie: are you visiting**

**Stephanie: next week**

**Stephanie: pls confirm**

**Stephanie: answer me**

**Stephanie: i’m sorry abt making fun of u**

**Stephanie: please tell me please please**

**Stephanie: what’s going on**

**Stephanie: i know you’re seeing these**

**Stephanie: if u leave me on read i swear**

**Stephanie: tell me**

**Stephanie: r u coming home**

 

Angelina merely smirks and turns her phone off. She decides to text Stephanie in the morning and walks off to the kitchen to get herself some dinner. 

It’s true, that Xander, her manager, has managed to get her a gig in Chicago, so she is going to flying there in a little bit over a week. She’s excited, because she hasn’t been to the city of Chicago ever since she moved to Brooklyn.

She keeps her excitement to herself, and she is in a very particularly good mood for the next few days.

The next day, Rosa and Angelina decide to head over to Ford Carpenter’s place. Rosa is all for throwing on her NYPD windbreaker and kicking down some doors, but Angelina isn’t so sure about this.

“He’ll find some way to get out of it if he knows that we’re cops. I know this guy, Diaz. Trust me. We have to go undercover,” she pitches.

Rosa makes a face. “And do what? Sell cookies?” she says sarcastically. “And besides, if you’ve seen this dude before, won’t he recognize you?”

Angelina tugs at her jacket sleeve. “No, had longer hair and most of it was… purple,” she says hastily, which causes Rosa to look at her curiously.

“Uh, okay then. So we just march in there and—”

“Actually, according to Ste— my partner in Chicago, Ford has a _girlfriend_ or something, and one of the neighbors said that they moved together. And if we get to the apartment in half an hour, then Carpenter will be at work, or his alibi cover-up. Hopefully the girlfriend will be home, and we can get some information from her.” Angelina says.

“Okay, fine. Let’s do this then,” Rosa says, still clutching her windbreaker.

Rosa drives the undercover cop cruiser to a refined looking apartment building, and to minutes later, they are knocking on a door marked 14.

A petite blonde girl opens the door. “Hi? Can I help you?”

Angelina smiles. “We heard that you just moved in! Uh—” she quickly looks to Rosa and then back at the blonde girl. “This is my roommate, Elle, and I’m… Ally! We live a couple of floors up and we thought that we’d welcome you!” Angelina says. Rosa crosses her arms and scowls.

The blonde looks a little taken aback, but she smiles. “I’m Margo. Would you like to come in?” she steps aside to let the two women in.

“Do I look like an _Elle_ to you?” Rosa hisses in Angelina’s ear. Angelina smiles brightly at Margo.

“You have a nice place! Do you live here alone?”

Margo blushes. “Actually, no! It’s my boyfriend. He lives with me. He’s got a pretty good job.” she says.

“Really. What is it,” Rosa questions.

“Oh! He’s a mechanical engineer. He works in a really nice garage. I’m a freelance journalist,” Margo says, sitting down on the couch.

Angelina draws in a deep breath and presses her lips together. “How long have you two been together?” she asks.

“Oh, about two months,” Margo says cheerfully. “What about you two?”

Rosa’s eyes widen, and then she lets out a short, harsh laugh.

“Oh, we’re not together! We—we’re just roommates,” Angelina says quickly. Margo laughs.

“And oh my god, they were _roommates,_ ” Margo says.

Rosa lets out an irritated sigh and then glares at Angelina. She turns to Margo. “Look, you seem like a nice lady and all. Where does your boyfriend work?”

“What?” Margo says, baffled.

“We are investigating a case. We need to know where your boyfriend is. Right now,” Rosa says.

“She might _tell_ him,” Angelina hisses to Rosa. Rosa shrugs nonchalantly and pulls her badge out. “NYPD. We need to know where your boyfriend, Ford Carpenter is.”

“So you’re _not_ Elle and Ally? I knew it! You didn’t look like an Elle anyways,” Margo says to Rosa.

“I told you,” Rosa says.

Angelina lets out an irritated huff. “Okay, I am so sorry, Margo, but you are now in the custody of the NYPD.” She pulls out her own badge. “You’re gonna have to come with us and tell us everything that you know.”

In the car, the two detectives continue to argue about how the case could have been handled differently. Rosa is driving, and she makes sure to slam the brakes on a little too hard whenever they hit a red light. Angelina pettily rolls her eyes every time that Rosa does this, and Margo curses from the backseat.

“You two can stop fighting, you know? What happened happened so just let it go,” she says from the backseat.

“See!” Rosa says, jerking to a stop in front of the precinct.

Margo gives them all of the information that she has, which is very little. All she knows is that she is dating a rich dude, and the name of the mechanical company that he works at. Margo also seems very shocked at the possibility that Carpenter could be a criminal.

Rosa and Angelina head over to the mechanical company, where they are met by a grease-faced worker. “Do you know Ford Carpenter,” Rosa says. The man seems to cower under her gaze.

“He actually owns this place?” he squeaks. Angelina looks at Rosa in surprise.

“How?” she whispers to Rosa. “He just got out of prison a while ago.”

“Could be a case of money laundering as well,” Rosa says. To the worker, she says, “Where can we find him?”

The worker leads them over to a closed garage. “His private work space is in there. No one’s allowed in, so maybe you should wait?”

Rosa rolls her eyes. “Go away.”

The worker scampers away gratefully.

“D’you think we could kick this thing down?’ Rosa mutters. Angelina points to a door at the side of the garage.

“Probably not, but we could kick _that_ down. Wanna do the honors?” Angelina says.

“Wait. Have you had the opportunity to kick down a door at all since you got here?” Rosa asks.

“No,” Angelina says, looking at her feet.

“You should do it then. I mean, this is a big solve on your part,” Rosa says.

“Aw, Diaz, you going soft on me?” Angelina teases.

Rosa scowls. “Just do it.”

Angelina gets to kick the door down, and they are immediately met with a sharp looking man, who instantly points a gun at Angelina. Rosa and Angelina both draw their own weapons, and point it at him. Rosa surveys the area, and figures out the the garage is a hiding place for a lot of valuables.

“It’s two against one. Give it up, Carpenter,” Angelina says.

“Never,” Carpenter says. He quickly aims his gun up and fires a shot at the light. It sparks a few times before going out. Glass rains down on them.

“He’s trying to run!” Rosa calls, and blocks the doorway. Instead, Carpenter goes for a button that opens up the garage. Daylight spills into the enclosed area, and Angelina rushes to intercept Carpenter before he can get out.

She manages to trip him, and he falls over with a grunt. The gun skids out of his hand, and Angelina kneels down to cuff him. “Ford Carpenter, you are under arrest. You—”

“Have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed to you,” Rosa rattles off. Angelina looks up at her. “You got to kick down the door. I get to read him his rights,” she says, but grins all the same.

They take him in, and Angelina takes over the interrogation, knowing exactly how to get information out of him just as she had done before. At the end, he says, “You look familiar. Do I know you? Did I rob ya before?”

Angelina rolls her eyes. “Detective Angelina Riley. You remember me?’

His eyes widen, and a hateful sneer curls onto his face. “I am going to _kill_ you Riley. I _hate_ you!” he says, as two beat cops take him away.

Angelina shrugs. “Eh, I can live with that. Not the worst I’ve heard.”

They hear Margo screaming at Carpenter hatefully. “I thought, that _maybe,_ I loved you! But you— you _asshole,_ you piece of shit!”

“I do love you, baby! Promise!” he calls back. Margo sneers at him.

“I _hate_ you,” she says, and turns to Rosa. “What’s gonna happen? I know there’s probably a lot of stuff in the apartment that you should look at.”

“Are you going to move back to Chicago?” Angelina asks. Margo looks wistful as she answers.

“I thought about it, but I decided that maybe I should stay here. My family used to move around a lot, so I’ll be fine making myself a new life here,” Margo informs them. “I mean, as long as that— that _jerk_ face stays in prison.”

Angelina and Rosa both deem the wrapped up case as successful, and Angelina goes home to tell Stephanie all about it.

She also ends up giving Stephanie more details about her weekend trip to Chicago. Stephanie informs her that the whole squad back in Chicago is looking forward to seeing her again, and that they all miss her.

The next few days pass by with Angelina in high spirits, which everyone guesses is from the case that she worked on with Rosa.  

“So, Angelina, we’re planning a family game night on Friday night. You’re gonna come, right? It’s at Rosa’s place,” Jake says on a Thursday afternoon, standing by Angelina’s desk as she fills out some paperwork. She looks up at him, and then glances at her watch.

“Uh, actually, I don’t know. I’m not free,” Angelina says, thinking about her weekend trip to Chicago. Her flight is late on Friday night, so there is no way that she can make ‘Family Game Night’ or whatever.

“Oh! That’s totally fine! Gina and I will reschedule it for Saturday, then!” Jake says.

“Really, Jake, make your plans. Don’t worry about me,” Angelina tells him, clicking her pen off. Jake looks at her strangely.

“You’ll be there, right?”

Angelina sighs in irritation. “I have to go, Jake,” she says, and grabs her bag. She brushes past him and into the elevator. Jake watches her leave, abandoned paperwork still on her desk.

“I will take that as a yes,” he mutters, and turns on his heel to stop by his own desk.

On Friday after work, Angelina is packing a small suitcase. She picks up a call from Xander, who informs her that he is going to pick her up in fifteen minutes to drive to the airport.

Angelina quickly gulps down a lukewarm cup of coffee, and makes sure that she has everything, when Xander arrives. He has gotten them a taxi, and two hours later, they are boarding a flight to Chicago.

“Excited?” Xander asks. Angelina shrugs.

“Yeah. First time back since we both moved. So what’s the plan?” she asks, leaning her head against the airplane window.

“I got you a gig for Saturday night. I emailed you the set-list, did you look at it?” Xander asks. Angelina nods. “Okay. So all you have is that, and then you’re free till Sunday night, when we fly back.”

“Cool. Nice. Okay.” Angelina says. She feels nostalgic at the second, and in her mind, Angelina is pretending that she has just flown somewhere else and is flying back _home_.

Two hours pass by quickly, and suddenly Angelina can see the city lights. They fly over, and land at O’Hare Airport, where they get a taxi and take it to downtown Chicago.

“My room’s right next to yours,” Xander tells Angelina at the hotel, and Angelina wearily settles down for the night in the hotel room.

In the morning on Saturday, she’s up early and she checks her text messages. Ignoring seventeen messages from the Nine-Nine group chat, she turns her phone off and slips it into her pocket and heads out on foot into the city.

It is exactly how she had remembered it. People ride around the city on blue rental bikes. Different aromas of food waft out of restaurants. People carry shopping bags as they wait at crosswalks. Cars honk at each other. The air is cold, and it faintly smells like smoke. There are puddles of melted snow on the street, and the sidewalks are damp. This is her home.

Angelina breathes in and smiles. She starts to walk. The city is so familiar to her, and she walks through it mindlessly, because she’s been through it a million times. She walks to a local coffee shop and pushes the door open. People drift in and out, laughing and whispering.

Angelina walks up to order a latte, and the barista smiles at her. “You’re back. Haven’t seen you in such a long time.”

“Hi, Sam! I actually moved away,” Angelina tells the barista

“Wait, really? To where?” they ask.

“Brooklyn. New York. I work with the NYPD now,” Angelina says. “It’s okay there, but I love it here more.”

“Stephanie still comes in sometimes, but it’s not the same without you,” Sam says, handing Angelina her latte. They add up Angelina’s total. “I’m gonna give you a friend’s discount,” Sam says.

“Thanks,” Angelina says. “I’ll come in every time I visit. Promise.”

She waves goodbye to Sam, and heads out of the shop. Angelina looks up at the skyscrapers as she walks. In a short amount of time, she finds herself glancing out to Lake Michigan, and the lake draws her closer.

The beach is all nearly frozen, but she walks out to it anyways. It’s abandoned, and there is no one there because of the cold. Angelina stays there for a few minutes before her phone rings. She picks it up, and it turns out to be Stephanie.

“We’re all at the precinct. You’re here already, right?” Stephanie asks.

“Yeah. I’m just looking at the lake. I’ll be over there in a little bit,” Angelina tells her.

“We’re waiting.”

Angelina somehow manages to get a taxi, and is driven to the District 10th Precinct. She takes the stairs going up like she always used to when she worked at the precinct, and emerges in the bullpen.

“Angie!” Kai has spotted her first, and the rest of the team rushes towards her.

“Hey, guys! I missed you!” Angelina says, hugging Stephanie. As they disperse, Angelina sees Captain Alisha Cameron standing there with her arms crossed.

Angelina smiles and salutes to the captain, which has been a running joke in the D-10. “Hey, Captain. How’s life?”

“It’s definitely something different without you on the squad,” she says, and shakes Angelina’s hand. “We miss having you on the force.”

“Agreed,” says Sergeant Brendon Lexor. Angelina laughs.

“You guys are alway first for me. I’m sorry that I had to leave,” she says, looking at the floor.

“Don’t be,” Captain Cameron says. “You’ve moved on to a new part of your life. New experiences are waiting for you.”

“Just don’t forget us,” Kai adds.

Angelina snorts. “As if I ever _could._ I couldn’t forget you even if I wanted to. Besides, you’re dating my best friend, so we’re linked forever.” She leans a little closer to him, and whispers something that only he can hear. “And if you _ever_ hurt her, then I will not hesitate to rip you to _shreds._ ”

Kai shivers. “Okay, jeez, Angelina. That’s all you’ve said to me for the past five months. Chill, okay?”

“Okay, okay, we’re cool!” Angelina says as Stephanie elbows her in the stomach.

She spends nearly eight hours in the precinct, walking around and talking with Stephanie, and helping the rest of the detectives with their cases.

Xander calls her around five-thirty. “If you’re at the precinct right now, you should come back to the hotel in a little bit to get ready for your show,” he says.

“I am ready. I’m not changing or anything,” Angelina tells him.

“Yeah, that’s fine, but you need to soundcheck and stuff,” he reminds her, so Angelina heads back to the hotel.

Xander takes her to the concert venue. It isn’t very big, but it isn’t particularly small, either. It’s empty inside except for maintenance, but some people have already started to line up outside. They wave to her as she and Xander go inside.

The concert starts after an hour,  and Angelina is enjoying herself. She’s played this venue a few times before, and it has certainly never disappointed her. She is wearing her _other_ favorite denim jacket, the dark blue one with rainbow patches and different kinds of buttons covering it.

Meanwhile, back in Brooklyn, the Nine-Nine minus Angelina are in Rosa’s apartment. Jake has brought his play station, and Gina is ripping open a bag of chips when Jake looks around. “Where’s Angelina?” he asks. Gina shrugs.

“You asked her to come, right?” Amy says, plopping down next to Jake. Jake nods.

“She said that she was busy on Friday, but she didn’t say anything about Saturday. I texted her Rosa’s address. She left me on read, so I know that she’s seen it,” Jake says, scrolling through his phone to make sure that he had indeed texted Angelina.

“Maybe she’s just late,” Gina says, eyeing the pretty brunette girl that Rosa is talking to. Rosa had just introduced the squad to Alex, and Alex was indeed very likable. She was upbeat and glamorous (and even though that may not have seemed like Rosa's type at first, she had slept with Gina Linetti on multiple occasions, and Gina was about as glamorous as a person could get) and everyone could tell just how much Rosa liked her. 

“I’ll call her,” Jake says, and proceeds to do just that. Angelina doesn’t pick up. He tries again twice, but it goes straight to voicemail.

What they don’t know is that Angelina Riley’s cell phone is sitting on a small table backstage. It is too loud to hear the phone ringing, and Angelina is a little bit preoccupied.

The weekend passes by and Angelina Riley stumbles into the bullpen fifteen minutes late. She’s a little disheveled, but she sits up straight when she sits down at her desk. Jake walks over to her. His arms are folded and he leans against her desk.

“Where were you?” he asks.

“Well, I accidentally overslept a little bit-”

“No, not that. Where were you on Saturday night?” Jake demands.

“Why do you want to know?” Angelina asks moodily, picking at her nails.

“Family game night. You didn’t show. Why not?”

Angelina suddenly feels very irritated. She looks up at Jake. “Look, I never said that I would be there. I was _busy,_ Peralta. And I don’t know why all of you are dead-set on having me at a family game night. We’re _coworkers. Colleagues._ I’m not your family. I barely know all of you. I’m just here to work.” Somewhere inside of her, she can feel tears threatening to spill. Her _family_ is in Chicago. The D-10 is her family. Xander is her family. Andrew is her family. But the Nine-Nine? She’s new here. They aren’t her family. The _can’t_ be her family. 

She just had to say goodbye to her D-10 family on Sunday. It was almost as heartbreaking to her as the first time she had to say goodbye, right before leaving for Brooklyn. Angelina doesn’t want to _replace_ them. They are the entire world to her.

“Okay, fine. Whatever.” Jake turns and sulks back to his desk. Rosa has also heard what Angelina had said. She grimly stares at her computer screen. Angelina takes a deep breath and turns back to her paperwork. She can’t concentrate. The entire precinct is silent and moody.

After the day is over,  Angelina is cornered in the garage by Rosa. She tries to step past Rosa, but Rosa blocks her path.

“What.” Angelina kicks at a stray pebble.

“Look, Riley, I get it. You’re new here. You’re a private person. I get that. But don’t talk to Jake like that. He’s my best friend. You don’t know how what you said made him feel. We’re all just trying to welcome you in, Riley. Just say so if you don’t want us to,” Rosa says.

“I’m sorry. I went back to Chicago over the weekend. I saw everyone I love, and then I had to say goodbye again. And I’m tired as hell and that isn’t helping. I just― I think I just kinda lost it,” Angelina sighs 

“It happens. I get that. Just― be careful, okay?” And with that, Rosa has turned on her heel and mounted her motorcycle.

Angelina texts Jake an apology as soon as she gets home. **I’ll come to the next family game night, okay? I’m trying.**

Jake replies within the minute, and all is forgiven between the two.

Angelina decides to drive around Brooklyn. She stays out until it is dark before driving home. By then, flurries of snow are falling to the ground, and the street lamps are lit. Christmas decorations are up, and everything is lit up.

Meanwhile, Rosa is hanging out at Gina’s apartment. She tells Gina about the conversation that she had with Riley earlier, and Gina seems very interested. So after Rosa leaves, Gina logs onto twitter and decides to look at Angelina Riley’s twitter.

Her suspicions are confirmed within the second she starts scrolling down the page. A pop-up show in Chicago? Gina looks through the pictures, and it is definitely Angelina. Wearing a cool-ass jacket. But it’s still Angelina, keeping secrets from the Nine-Nine, and Gina _knows._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i spent a lot of time trying to patch this chapter up!! i'm fairly proud of it!  
> tumblr: @darkrosemind


	6. i lose my balance on these eggshells you tell me to tread (i'd rather be a wild one instead)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maybe Rosa and Angelina are slowly starting to become friends? who knows. But in the meantime, a new detective has entered the picture. Is he going to stay in the story for a while? maybe. I haven't decided what to do with him yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title is lyrics from "wild things" by alessia cara

Gina has been thinking over the weekend, and even though what she has on Angelina is really good blackmail info, Gina needs to know the _whole_ truth. She only knows what it is right now, and Gina is itching to know how this all came to be, and how Angelina manages. (Also, Gina really needs to know if Angelina knows other celebrities.)

So one day, Gina corners Angelina in the briefing room after everyone else has left. “We need to talk.”

Angelina is sitting at a table, looking through a file. She sighs heavily. “Why do people say that? I hate it when people say that. You never know what to expect,” she says, shutting her case file and looking up at Gina.

Gina stands across from Angelina and puts both of her hands down on the table. “I’ll tell you what to expect. What were you doing in a super cool denim jacket on Saturday night? While all of us were being crushed at Monopoly by Amy? _You_ were holding a mic. You were standing on a stage, _singing._ ”

Angelina blinks. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she says calmly. “I know my denim jackets are awesome, but I can assure you, even though I love to sing, I have never sang on a stage. Except for karaoke night at my sister-in-law’s bachelorette party,” Angelina states.

It’s almost believable. Angelina Riley is a very good liar. And even though Gina doesn’t know her tell yet, she just _knows_ that Angelina is lying, because Gina has pictures and pictures don’t lie.

So Gina holds up her phone and shows Angelina. “Mhmm. So, who’s _that?_ It looks like you. You have the same hair. Same figure. Same face. It’s you, Riley. You’re not fooling me.”

Angelina sighs with irritation and puts her hands up. “Okay, fine. You got me. It’s me. If you tell anyone, I will not hesitate to _ruin_ you. Don’t underestimate me.”

“I would _never,_ ” Gina purrs. “But what’s in it for me? Do I get to meet Beyonce?”

“I do not _know_ Beyonce. But if anything ever comes up, I’ll let you know, okay?” Angelina says, knowing fully well that nothing is going to ever come up, because she doesn’t intermingle with other artists.

“Deal,” Gina says obliviously. “But I wanna hear this story. You have to tell me everything.”

“Okay, fine. Let’s grab something during lunch, and then I’ll tell you,” Angelina says.

“So you’re asking me out on a date now?” Gina asks, winking.

Angelina can feel heat rising to her face. “No!” She’s too much of a mess to realize that Gina is flirting. Angelina Riley cannot flirt to save her life. “Just, just friends.”

“Okay, whatever you say,” Gina says. She raises an eyebrow at Angelina and sashays out of the briefing room. Angelina stares after her and leaves the briefing room a few minutes after she is sure that Gina is gone.

Angelina feels as if today is not the best day. She sits down at her own desk and slaps the file down onto the surface, causing Rosa to look up at her strangely. Angelina dismisses this, because Rosa is always throwing strange looks her way.

Gina comes over far too quickly, and both of them make their way out of the precinct. Gina leads her to a deli, and Angelina just rolls with it, because she sure as hell doesn’t want to get on Gina bad side. Not now, when Gina has valuable information in her hands.

They sit down, both with a sandwich. “Spill,” Gina commands.

Angelina rolls her eyes. “When I was fifteen, I got a job at a diner where I would just sing, you know, cover songs and stuff like that. My parents thought I got the job and I was helping out in the kitchen and shit. I got a few offers from record companies but I guess I didn't want to do that? I wanted my freedom as a teenager. I finished high school, went to college, and after I got my job as a beat cop, I got an music offer that gave me a lot of liberty. I could work with music and the law. I took it, and I’m here now,” Angelina drawls.

“Is that really believable?” Gina questions. Angelina snorts.

“I don’t care if you believe me or not. You wanted the truth. I gave you the truth. And if you tell anyone, I will _cut_ you,” Angelina seethes.

“Really, darling, your threats aren’t as scary as Rosa’s,” Gina smirks. “Although they are very cute. But is that really the whole truth?"

Angelina sighs. "Okay, fine, I produced a few songs and shit when I was in high school and college and stuff, but they were like by myself and a friend and stuff. Whatever. That's it, okay?"

"Hmmm, you know what? I'll take it," Gina smiles.

Angelina takes a deep breath. “Okay, Gina. Fine. But please, do _not_ tell anyone.”

“Fine. Deal. But if you meet any cool celebrities, then you’re not allowed to meet them without _me._ ”

“Whatever,” Angelina mutters, but she’s speaking to empty air because Gina has already made her exit and is nowhere to be see.

Angelina’s eyes flash violently as she makes her way out of the deli. She sure does feel like punching something, but she shoves her fists into her pockets and walks back to the precinct because her lunch break is just about over.

Gina is sitting at her desk when Angelina gets back, typing away on her phone as if she’s been there for hours. She doesn’t acknowledge Angelina’s arrival, and Angelina sits down at her own desk and furiously begins on some paperwork.

Rosa and Jake return from some field work a little bit later, and Rosa drops a coffee on Angelina’s desk, causing her to glance up. “What’s this?" Angelina asks, with a confused look on her face. Rosa shrugs.

"You've been acting off this entire day. I thought that you could use a coffee. You know, because we're friends?" Rosa says with uncertainty. "Actually, never mind. Whatever," she mutters, and sits down across from Angelina; at her own desk.

"Yeah. Uh, yeah. We're friends," Angelina says, pulling the coffee closer to her. She lifts the cup to her mouth and takes a sip. It's warm and just the right amount of sweet. "Thank you," Angelina says.

"Don't mention it," Rosa says.

"Okay," Angelina replies, offering Rosa a tiny smile.

"No, seriously. If you mention this to anyone, then I'm going to have to kill you," Rosa says.

Angelina arches an eyebrow. "Because you're going soft on me. And you don't want anyone to know."

"How dare you suggest―" Rosa takes a deep breath in order to calm herself. "I'm not going _soft_ on you, Riley. Shut up and just drink the coffee," Rosa says.

Angelina eyes it skeptically. "So did you poison it or something?" she teases, looking back at Rosa.

Rosa stares her in the eye. "Yes. Absolutely. It's poisoned. I've poisoned you," she deadpans. Angelina can help but to laugh. She takes another sip.

"It's really great poison," Angelina comments, and Rosa just wants to bury her face in her paperwork because she's really starting to think that she shouldn't have brought Riley that coffee. Riley just seemed a little upset about something this morning, so Rosa decided to bring her a coffee. According to the 'Handbook of Friendship' Jake had gotten her for Christmas, it was a cool move to get an upset friend a coffee so that's what Rosa had tried.

It had worked, to some extent, because Angelina was sitting up instead of slouching and she was smiling. She seemed more alive than she had been about five minutes ago so Rosa deemed it a success.

"It's not like I _made_ it," she mumbles anyways, watching Gina approach the desk.

"Okay you two, stop flirting. Holt's got some work that needs to get done, so here you go!" Gina says, dropping a mound of folders in the center of Angelina and Rosa's desk.

Rosa looks up at her with a surprised look. Angelina nearly chokes on her coffee.

"We weren't―"

"We're not flirting, Gina. Go away," Rosa says menacingly.

"Okay. Whatever you say," Gina smiles, and Angelina suddenly feels very uneasy. She flips open a folder.

"I have a _girlfriend,_ Gina. Seriously."

Rosa pulls a folder towards her and stabs a piece of paper with her black pen.

Gina winks and sashays away.

Rosa scowls in Angelina's direction and begins writing furiously. Angelina rolls her eyes, and just like that, the friendly environment dissolves and they are back to being annoyed acquaintances.

Amy walks by a little bit later and lifts the stack of paperwork off of their desks. "This is all supposed to be Gina's work from like last month," she says. "But apparently, she's working on something else, so Hitchcock and Scully offered to take all of this."

Rosa thrusts the folders at her. "Thanks. Now I can actually focus on my case."

"You okay?" Amy asks Rosa with concern. She glances to Angelina, who currently has an earbud dangling from one ear. She is stonily looking at her computer screen. Angelina glances up at Amy once and quickly snaps her head back to the screen.

"Yeah, whatever," Rosa answers. "I'm good."

"Okay," Amy says, and walks the folders over to Hitchcock and Scully.

Ten minutes later,  Angelina is looking at something in the evidence room when she is cornered by Charles. He stands on his toes and puts a box on a shelf.

"Sooo, Angelina! Hi! How's it going?" he asks cheerfully.

"What's up. It's fine," Angelina replies, thumbing through a box of files.

"You know, there are a lot of nicknames that you can get from your name," Charles pitches. Angelina just barely refrains from rolling her eyes.

"I know. I've heard them all."

"Like Angela, or Angie or Lina or Lin or Gelina!" Charles says enthusiastically. Angelina wrinkles her nose at the last one.

"Don't call me that. Like, ever."

"You know, Lin is a pretty cool nickname! That's my dad's name, and also Lin Manuel Miranda!" Charles says enthusiastically. Angelina makes a face. "What about Angie?" Charles asks. Angelina bites her lip in frustration.

"Sure, but I prefer just Angelina," she tells Charles. He nods.

"Cool! Okay! Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool," he says. "That's a little something that I picked up from Jake!"

"Don't we all pick up a little something from Jake?" Angelina murmurs absentmindedly.

"Absolutely!" Charles elaborates. "Jake's awesome. I could talk about him forever." Charles smiles widely. Angelina pushes the box of files back in its place.

"Well, I couldn't because I have to go," she says, and waves goodbye to Charles as she leaves the evidence lockup. By the time Angelina makes it back to the bullpen, Rosa and Amy are gone. Rosa's jacket still hangs over her chair, providing evidence that she has not yet left the precinct.

Angelina turns her computer off and takes the elevator to the garage. She starts her car and heads to not her own home, but to Andrew's place.

Ronni answers the door with a big grin on her face. Angelina sweeps her up into a hug, and Ronni shows her the 10/10 that she got on a spelling test previously that day.

Emmi flies down the stairs as soon as she hears Angelina's voice. Selina comes by a minute later.

"Dad just got home. He's taking a shower. Mom's still at work," Selina informs Angelina.

"You're stuck with us!" Ronni says gleefully. Angelina taps Ronni on the nose.

"I guess I am! Do you think your dad would mind if I stole you guys for a trip to go get ice cream?" Angelina says thoughtfully.

"Let's go!" Emmi shrieks. "Before Dad comes downstairs and says no!"

Selina looks at Angelina doubtfully. "I'm leaving my phone at home then, because if Dad finds out, he's gonna call me and you know, _I'll_ be the one getting in trouble as usual."

"Don't worry," Angelina says. "This one'll be on me, and your dad won't be too mad at me. I've done worst," she  informs the kids. Ronni's eyes widen.

"Like what?" she pesters.

Angelina laughs. "Those are stories for another time. Come on, guys. Let's go," she says, and herds the kids out into her car. Ronni and Emmi sit in the back, and Selina climbs into the passenger's seat. Angelina starts the car and they pull out of the neighborhood.

Selina stares out of the window as Emmi and Ronni talk loudly in the back. After a few minutes, she turns to Angelina. "What's your work like?" she asks.

"It's pretty cool. There's a lot to it, actually. Sometimes I do field work, where I actually go out and catch criminals and stake out places. Other days, we have interrogations, reports that need to be filled out, and paperwork," Angelina tells her.

"So you have like action and office work all rolled into one?"

"Yeah, kinda. The action is what makes it fun. It gives you a thrill, you know? But another reason why it's so fun is because of the crew. Everyone makes it fun for each other," Angelina says, not thinking about the Nine-Nine, but about the D-10.

"Do you like it here better?" Selina asks.

"I don't know," Angelina says. "I really miss my old squad. They were fun. I kinda wish that I could go back to Chicago."

"Why did you move here anyways? I heard my mom and dad talking something about a record deal," Selina says. "Does that have anything to do with this?"

"Yeah. It does. My _other_ job; the company moved here so I came too. But I think it's gonna be good here. You guys are here, and I think I'm going to like it here," Angelina says, remembering the coffee that Rosa had brought her previously that day.

She pulls into the parking lot of an ice cream place, and the kids quickly hop out of the car in excitement. Angelina buys them all ice cream; cookie dough for herself, moose tracks for Emmi, bubblegum for Ronni, and cookies and cream for Selina.

While they are sitting at a table and eating, Angelina's phone rings. She slips it out of her pocket and sees that it is Andrew. Angelina quickly lifts a finger to her lips. "Shhh! Guys! It's my brother," she says and answers the phone.

Ronni giggles. "It's Dad!" she whispers shrilly.

"Hey, Andy! What's up?" Angelina says.

"Angelina, I am freaking out. My kids are missing. This is so bad. Ave is going to kill me when she gets home," Andrew rambles. "I have no idea where they are. You have to help me."

Angelina yawns into the phone. "They're with me," she says.

"What! Where! You just _took_ them? Angelina Stella Riley, I'm going to _kill_ you! Where are you?" Andrew says loudly. "I swear to god, Angie, if anything _happens_ to them-"

"Well, actually, I've kidnapped them, and I'm going to need two million-"

" _Seriously,_ Angie! Where are you guys?" Andrew says frantically as Ronni and Emmi giggle. Selina is smiling as she spoons a bite of ice cream into her mouth.

"Calm down, man," Angelina chides. "We're at that ice cream place by the gas station and the playground. Seriously, who was the city planner here? The layout of this place _sucks._ "

"His name is Mark and he lives in Indiana. Mark did a good job with this place. Don't be mean to him," Andrew says. "Anyways, I'm on my way," he says, and hangs up the phone.

"Okay, so your dad's on the way. Here's the plan," Angelina says in a low voice. "You guys have to pretend that you didn't want to come and I kidnapped you."

Emmi and Ronni nod eagerly. "Why are we doing this again?" Selina asks.

"For kicks," Angelina says. "Don't worry, it'll be fun."

"Do you think Dad will think it's funny?" Emmi asks. Ronni nods serenely.

"I've known Daddy for longer than all of you. He's going to think that it's funny," she says, with pink ice cream smeared on her nose.

Emmi and Selina both roll their eyes at Ronni's first comment. "Literally all of us have known Dad longer than you, Ronni. Aunt Angelina's known him the longest," Emmi says.

"Yup. I grew up with him. And I have a _lot_ of dirt on him," Angelina says.

"I'm gonna have to hear all of these stories later," Selina mutters, and a bell rings as the door of the ice cream place swings open. A hassled-looking Andrew enters the place and looks around anxiously. As soon as he spots Angelina and the kids, he quickly walks over.

"Dad!" Emmi says. "You came for us!"

"Your hair is still wet," Selina says flatly. Ronni bounds up to him and hugs his leg.

"Daddy, take us home! Aunt Angelina made us come here, and it's not fun!" Ronni says, trying and failing to discreetly wink at Angelina. Andrew doesn't notice as he lifts Ronni into the air.

"Did she? Seriously, Angelina? You had to abduct my kids when they didn't wanna have ice cream in the middle of freaking winter?" Andrew says accusingly, glaring at Angelina. Selina snorts.

Emmi is valiantly trying to hold in laughter as she stands up. "Yeah. This sucks. I have _homework_ to do," she says as convincingly as she can.

Selina can no longer hold it in and lets out a short burst of laughter. " _You!_ Homework! Seriously, Em? That was a horrible excuse."

Andrew looks at Angelina in a confused manner. She slyly smiles at him. "Yup. You've been _punk'd!_ " she says, punching him in the arm.

"Ha-ha. Very funny, you guys. Let's go home," Andrew says.

"No!" Ronni whines. "Stay and have some ice cream!"

"I'm buying," Angelina adds, and Andrew sits down.

"Let me just text Ave first. I didn't tell her that the kids went missing, because I knew that she would mega-freak out," Andrew says, and pulls his phone out. "Also, it's supposed to be hot cocoa season. Not ice cream season," Andrew says, looking around.

"C'mon, Andy! You're no fun. We're all children here. Ice cream is the best," Angelina says, and Andrew reluctantly gets a vanilla bean ice cream cone.

Two days later, Angelina is sitting in an empty coffee shop after work and looking at a file over a cup of coffee. She looks up when the door swings open and a man walks in. He's tall; with dark brown eyes and tousled brown hair. He tugs his jacket tighter around him, and his eyes flicker over Angelina for a moment. She has already dropped her gaze and is biting her lip while writing something down on her notepad.

The man orders a hot chocolate. Once he gets it, he walks over to Angelina's table and clears his throat. She looks up again and offers half of a smile.

"Is anyone sitting here?" he asks. Angelina's eyes flicker over his face.

"Uh, no! It's empty," she says, tugging her file closer to herself. He sits down.

"You're from the Nine-Nine, right?" he asks, and Angelina quickly takes a sip of her coffee.

"Yeah! Yeah, I'm from the Nine-Nine," she says. "And who― who exactly are you?"

The stranger laughs. "Yeah, I should probably introduce myself. I'm from the Nine-Five. My name is Mike. Mike Samuels. I saw you a few weeks ago― were you transferred?"

"Kinda," Angelina says. "I used to work with the CPD. Chicago Police Department. I came here in November," she tells Mike. His eyes register on the case file.

"Are you working on a case right now?" he asks, and Angelina nods. "I could help you if you want," Mike offers and Angelina pushes the file towards the center of the table.

"It's a cyber-scam case. You know, fraud and robbery. At least a hundred people have been scammed by the unsub. I don't know if there are multiple people behind this, or just one. But they always leave a "catch ya later!" at the end of their messages, so I'm pretty sure that these are all connected," Angelina says, and he flips through the file.

"NYPD doesn't take a lot of these type of cases," Mike comments.

"But this one― the caller ID shows up as NYPD, so it's involving us. At least five people have threatened to sue us," Angelina says. "That's why my captain wants us to solve this. And fast, before more people get scammed. He already put out a notification about this in the media, but not everyone looks at that stuff."

"All right. What do we have for this so far?" Mike asks, and they proceed to go over the details of the case together.

Soon, it gets dark, and Mike asks Angelina if she needs a ride. "No thanks," Angelina says. "My motorcycle's outside."

"Can I at least get your number?" Mike asks, and Angelina willingly gives it to him. She goes home cheerfully that night, and orders a pizza for dinner.

The next day, Angelina is sitting at her desk in the bullpen and looking at the case file and the footnotes that she wrote down with Mike the other day. She doesn't look up when Rosa comes in and sits down, but suddenly someone is tapping her on the shoulder. Angelina's head snaps up and she finds herself looking up at Mike.

"Hey. I thought I'd stop by and tell you something about your case," Mike says, pulling a chair up next to Angelina's desk and sitting down.

"Really. What is it?" Angelina asks. Her eyes flit to Rosa, who is watching this exchange with an amused expression on her face.

"Well my partner and I― I mean, like police partner, not like _girlfriend_ partner or anything because I don't have one of those― we were looking into these scam calls, and somehow, we managed to _get_ one. It took a lot of baiting and stuff, but we got one, and we tracked it, so I thought you might want the IP address," Mike says.

"Mike! That's great! Can you text it to me?" Angelina says, averting her eyes from Rosa, who has one eyebrow arched and is listening with interest.

"Of course. Okay, I'm gonna go― don't want to be late for my briefing," Mike says, and leaves the bullpen. Rosa makes a sound in her throat, catching Angelina's attention.

"What?" Angelina says.

"Who was he?" Rosa asks, an odd gleam in her eyes.

"He's from the Nine-Five. He was just helping me with a case,” Angelina says.

"Friends?” Gina purrs. “Or _more_ than that?”

Angelina’s cheeks burn as she looks down on her phone. “No, we are not more than friends. I don’t know if we’re even friends, Gina.” Angelina opens a text message from Mike, and it is the IP address that he had promised to text her just minutes before. Angelina quickly jots it down in her notepad and proceeds to open up the Nine-Nine group chat.

 

**Jake: hey riley was that ur boyfriend or smth**

**Jake: tall handsome dude in with the beautiful hair and blue bomber jacket 😍**

**Angelina: no**

**Angelina: he is not my boyfriend**

**Gina: do u wish he was tho**

**Amy: Who are we talking about?**

**Jake: the tall handsome dude with the gorgeous hair in the blue bomber jacket**

**Jake: duh**

**Angelina: his name is mike and he works in the 95**

**Amy: Oh, Mike! I saw him last year at cop con!**

**Gina: is he a nerd**

**Angelina: probably idk**

**Gina: i mean all of u guys are nerds so the bar is pretty low**

**Rosa: 🔪**

**Rosa: 🔫**

**Gina: chill rosa**

**Gina: ur still a nerd tho**

**Jake: so do we think we could get me tall handsome dudes number**

**Amy: You're married to me, you dork.**

**Jake: i know!!! just wanna know if this dude wants to hang out and be my best friend**

**Charles: but i’m your best friend**

**Charles: i will kill this mike**

**Charles: jake only has room for ONE best friend**

**Charles: and that is ME**

**Charles: i hope mike chokes on his own tongue because jake is MINE**

**Charles: i will be jakes ONLY best friend**

**Charles: so mike better not even think about it**

**Charles: because IM jakes best friend**

**[Gina has removed Charles from the group chat]**

**Gina: you’re welcome bitches💯**

 

Rosa rolls her eyes and opens up a message from Alex. It’s a simple text asking Rosa to meet up later during lunch break. Rosa has to smile as she text Alex back, which is a facial expression that Gina manages to catch notice of. Gina sneaks up behind Rosa.

“Texting _Alexis?_ ”

Rosa quickly slaps her phone down onto her thighs. “Gina! What the hell. And yeah.”

“You always smile when you text her. Either that, or you were watching that gag reel that I made of Jake falling down the stairs last week,” Gina says, pulling a small glittery nail file out of her pocket.

“Alex is my girlfriend,” Rosa says. She barely manages to keep a smile off of her face, because it feels so damn good to say that out loud. “It’s perfectly normal for me to smile while texting her.”

“I guess that’s valid. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to leave,” Gina says, and flounces away. Rosa rolls her eyes affectionately and turns her attention to the new case that Terry had just assigned her.

Meanwhile, Angelina is working on her scam-call case. She pinpoints a location which might just be the headquarters of the perp(s), and calls Mike.

“Hey! So I’m going to go out and do some field work with my case, and I just thought that maybe you’d like to come with? I mean, since you helped me with it so much. If you can come, that it,” Angelina says right as Mike picks up on the other end.

“No, I’d love to come! I actually just wrapped up a case, so I’m all free to come along. I can meet you outside of your precinct in ten?”

“Yeah! Yeah, that’ll be fine,” Angelina says, and turns off her phone. Across from her, Rosa snorts.

“You two nerds going on your first date?”

“No! Mike and I are going to do some field work. And it is _not_ a date,” Angelina says, glaring at Rosa. “Please; I really don’t wanna hear your guys’s crap-theories about Mike and I.”

“Fine, whatever,” Rosa mutters. “The only one here who’s actually interested in your love life is Gina. And that’s because she’s interested in _everyone’s_ love lives.” Rosa says, and shrugs her jacket off of her shoulders. Captain Holt walks by a moment later and stops at Angelina’s desk.

“Detective Riley. How is your case going?”

“Pretty well, Captain. A friend of mine helped me out and we managed to get an IP address. I am actually going to go check it out right now,” Angelina says.

“If you need any backup, then just let me know,” Captain Holt says, and moves on to talk to Terry about a homicide case.

Angelina grabs her denim jacket and head outside to find Mike leaning casually against the front of the building. He looks up from his phone once he hears her approaching footsteps. “Hey, Riley. So, we gonna catch some bad guys, or what?”

Angelina grins. “I’m driving.”

“Then I call shotgun,” Mike says, and follows her to the undercover cop cruiser.

Mike turns on the radio once they are in the car, and they drive through a few songs in silence. As soon as Angelina pulls to a stop at a red light, a familiar voice starts on the radio, and Angelina quickly flips the radio off.

“Hey!” Mike complains. “Do you have something against that song or something?”

 _Writing that song was one of the stupidest things I've ever_ done, Angelina is thinking, but she forces a smile on her face and looks over to Mike.

“No. I was just getting tired of listening to the radio! Let’s just… talk or something,” Angelina says, pushing on the accelerator a little bit too hard. Mike jolts forward.

“Okay. That’s cool. So, what do you like to do?” Mike asks.

“Me? I’m a wannabe artist. Sometimes I draw,” Angelina says.

“Oh, I wanna see your work someday, then. I’m a terrible artist,” Mike says.

“Yeah, maybe,” Angelina says mindlessly, pulling to a stop in front of a building. “I think that there might be a side entrance or something,” she says thoughtfully as they both get out of the car. Angelina takes the lead and Mike follows behind her cautiously, keeping a lookout for anyone who might see them. They stop at a grey door and Mike looks around.

"Do you want me to kick it down?" Mike asks.

"I can do it," Angelina replies, cracking her knuckles. Mike looks down at her feet skeptically. 

"You're wearing heels," he says, staring at her heeled boots.

"Yeah, but they're two inch heels. And they're not stilettos. Also, I could do more in these shoes in one day than you could in a week. I got this," Angelina says. She leans forward and examines the door closely.

"What are you doing?" Mike asks, confused.

"You don't actually kick down doors like they do in movies, do you? You have to see how the door works, how much power it would take to kick it down, and in some cases, doors don't exactly fall down right as you kick them. It might take more than one kick, or you might have to end up picking the lock. And this door; this door is not going to come down easy," Angelina says. She takes a few steps back and then flies at it with maximum force. It falls with a loud thud, and Angelina arches her eyebrow at Mike.

"Nice. Where'd you learn to do that?" he asks approvingly.

"Took karate when I was a teenager. And police training academy. The place I went to, they had a whole class just to show how to kick down a door properly," Angelina says, and grins at him.

"Wow. I keep on learning something new about you, and it's fascinating," Mike says, causing Angelina to quickly look down at her feet in embarrassment. "Well, after you." He gestures to the empty doorway, and Angelina walks in without hesitation.

Mike quickly catches up with her. "Hey, wait, aren't you going to take out your gun?"

Angelina looks at him in disbelief. "Look, Samuels, violence isn't the answer to everything. I don't like taking my gun out for no reason. There's no one here right now. I don't need to take out my gun," Angelina says.

"Oh, okay," Mike says, flummoxed. "That's cool, then. Okay." He lowers his own weapon down, but doesn't put it back in its holster. Angelina takes no notice as she pushes a door open and walks into what looks like a computer room.

"This must be the headquarters," Angelina breathes, quickly taking out her phone camera  and snapping a few pictures.

"Okay, so we can dust the keyboards for fingerprints. Is there a kit in the car?" Mike asks. "I could go and grab it."

Angelina tosses the car keys at him, and he catches them with his free hand. "I'll be back in a minute. Try finding some more stuff," Mike says, and Angelina watches him run in the direction that they came in. Angelina turns back to the place, which she has now dubbed a crime scene.

She is opening a drawer when she hears footsteps behind her. Angelina quickly snaps around to see a bored looking woman with curly blonde hair and sunglasses staring at her. She is wearing a blue mini dress with tall black stilettos, and she clears her throat.

"Are you the intern?" she asks.

"What?" Angelina asks.

"The intern. Fox said that there would be an intern coming in today. You have your fake badge?" The woman asks, obnoxiously snapping her gum.

"Uh, yeah. Absolutely," Angelina says, and flashes her fully authentic NYPD badge at her. "I've got my fake badge. So, uh, what am I supposed to do?" she asks.

"Uh, did Fox not tell you _anything?_ Honestly, that man is so useless," the woman says. She has her back to the door, and Angelina catches a glimpse of Mike peeking in. Angelina flashes her eyes at him, and he darts to one side.

"So, um, tell me― what exactly is it that you guys do here?" Angelina asks quickly, catching the woman's gaze.

"Well, since Fox is useless, I'll just tell you. We have a random New York number generator, and we con them. We tell them that we're the police, and then we get money from them. That's why we got you a fake badge, honey. You're part of the show now."

Mike darts in the doorway again, holding up his phone. Angelina squints, and sees the voice recording app open. He flashes her a thumbs up, and Angelina looks at the woman again.

"What's _your_ name?" Angelina asks.

"You can call me Zebra, hon. We all have nicknames here. In a few days, you'll have one too," Zebra smirks. "Maybe 'little crow' or 'hedgehog' would fit you."

Angelina stares at Zebra, and then walks a little closer to the woman. Without warning, Angelina has grabbed both of Zebra's hands and is grabbing a pair of handcuffs from her jacket pocket. Zebra shrieks and wriggles in protest, but she has already been cuffed and Mike is running to Angelina's aid.

"What are you doing!" Zebra screams.

"I'm with the _real_ NYPD, not your stupid scam, and you kinda might be going to prison," Angelina informs her. "Also, my spirit animal is a tiger. Just letting you know."

Mike begins to read Zebra her Miranda Rights, and they lead her away and to the cop cruiser. Half an hour later, 'Zebra' is in the interrogation room, even though there is no need, because Mike has already recorded everything that she had said.

"Nice solve, Detective Riley," Captain Holt praises when they get back to the bullpen. Angelina shrugs.

"Actually, I had some help," she says, and Mike steps forward.

"Hi, I'm Detective Samuels of the Nine-Five," he says, and firmly shakes Captain Holt's hand. "You have some of the best detectives around here."

An amusing twinkle runs through Captain Holt's eyes. "Yes, I am well aware of that," he replies, and heads back towards his own office. Mike follows Angelina to her desk, and sits down with her. Rosa smirks.

"Back from your date?" she asks, amused.

"It wasn't a date, Diaz. Go back to your mugging case or whatever," Angelina shoots back, and Rosa scowls darkly before turning to her own computer screen.

"About that―" Mike whispers, and Angelina turns to him. He speaks in a low voice. "Maybe we could actually, you know, go on a date or something?" he asks nervously. Angelina's eyes widen.

"Uh, yeah! Sure. That would be nice," she stutters, and Mike smiles. "So, uh, when?"

"Maybe tomorrow?" Mike asks.

Angelina glances down at her watch to look at the date. "Um, actually, I'm not free tomorrow. Maybe the day after?" she requests.

"Uh, yeah! Sure. I'll text you. I have to go now," Mike says. He smiles and stands up to leave.

A minute later, Rosa is staring at Angelina. "What." Angelina says, catching Rosa's eye.

"So now you're going on a date, huh?" Rosa asks. Angelina does her best to mask her smile, but it breaks out on her face, and she covers her mouth with her hand.

"Shut up, Diaz," Angelina mutters, just in time for Gina to pop in.

"Ooooh, what are we talking about? Angelina has a date? Well, it's about time," she chirps, and sits down on top of Rosa's desk. Gina pulls out her phone, and a minute later they all have their phones out.

 

**Gina: guess what**

**Gina: rileys going on a date with tall handsome dude**

**Jake: lucky**

**Amy: Seriously, Jake?**

**Jake: dont be jealous bby i just wanted to b his bff**

**Charles: JAKE NO**

**Charles: IM UR BFF FOREVER**

**Gina: ugh who added u back**

**Gina: did u bully terr into adding u back boyle**

**Charles: maybe**

**Gina: terry we need to have a word**

**Terry: no**

**Terry: i like greek yogurt**

**Angelina: mood**

**Rosa: so do u really really like him**

**Captain Holt: Who?**

**Rosa: no one**

**Jake: nothing**

**Captain Holt: Judging by the looks on all of your faces, you are discussing your love lives. I will back out of this conversation. Good bye.**

**Amy: So, tell us more about this "tall handsome dude," Angelina.**

**Angelina: his name is mike god damn it**

**Gina: well i hope u have a fun time with mike god damn it**

**Gina: maybe if u two get married ur name will be angelina god damn it**

**Angelina: fghjkhgfhjkh no**

**Angelina: not happening**

**Angelina: shut up linetti**

**Rosa: big mood**

**Jake: maybe u could tell mike abt me on ur date??**

**Charles: NONONONONONO DONT DO IT**

**Charles: JAKE U DONT NEED MIKE**

**Charles: UR HAIR IS PRETTIER THAN MIKES**

**Charles: 😀🙂😁😎😍💯😊😃😂😄😃😀**

**Gina: im kicking u out till u can calm down boyle**

**[Gina has removed Charles from the group chat]**

**[Terry has added Charles to the group chat]**

**Gina: TERRY HOW DARE U**

**Terry: i'm sorry gina!!! he gave me mango yogurt**

**Gina: when i find u**

**[Terry has left the group chat]**

**[Gina has added Terry to the group chat]**

**Gina: im gonna rip you apart**

**Terry: i'm moving to antarctica!!! byee!!**

**Jake: k i have a playdate with doug so see u guys l8rt!!**

**Charles: why wasnt i invited**

**Charles: JAKE**

**Charles: JAKE**

**Charles: JAKE**

**[Gina has removed Charles from the group chat]**

**Gina: okay riles have fun on ur date**

**Angelina: don't call me 'riles'**

**Angelina: also the date is in like two days**

**Angelina: so u guys can like stop or something**

**Rosa: okay but if you ever need anyone to kill him then call me**

**Angelina: will keep that in mind thanks**

**Rosa: no problem**

**Gina: actually rosa theres this dude who lives next door to me and hes always complaining so can u kill him please please please roro**

**Rosa: no**

**Rosa: i don't know him sorry**

**Gina: but you dont know mike!!!!**

**Rosa: i wish i didn't**

**Amy: Rosa and I met Mike at cop con last year!!! It was a lot of fun!**

**Rosa: it was not fun**

**Rosa: i hated it**

**Angelina: should i be scared then**

**Rosa: nah. he seems like your type**

**Angelina: u don't know my type**

**Rosa: sure. whatever you say.**

**Angelina: okay???**

**Angelina: what is that supposed to mean**

**Gina: PEACE suckers im going home**

**Rosa: same**

**Angelina: okay bye then**

 

She stumbles into both Rosa and Gina in the garage. Rosa is putting on her helmet and Gina is tossing her car keys up and down. She's humming along to a song, and she stops when she sees Angelina.

"Hey, so if your date with Mike doesn't work out, send him my way!" she chirps, and then winks. Angelina sighs.

"Honestly; why is everyone so obsessed with Mike?" Angelina says.

"Jake's got a point," Rosa says from under her helmet. "Dude has a pretty face, nice hair, everything."

"Sorry, hadn't noticed that," Angelina mutters under her breath.

"You know, except for the fact that he shot me in the face last year at cop con," Rosa states flatly.

"Honey, it was paint ball. Get over it," Gina says, sympathetically patting Rosa on the shoulder. "I mean, I got a really great picture of you with your face covered in pink, so that was fun."

"Delete that picture before I delete you," Rosa threatens, and Gina smirks. She smiles sweetly at Rosa and turns in the other direction. Angelina watches this exchange with a raised eyebrow and starts towards her own car. Rosa mounts her bike and Gina unlocks her car with a loud blare. As Angelina is getting into her car, she sees Amy rushing after Rosa and stopping her. Rosa takes her helmet off, and curly hair falls over her shoulders.

For some reason, Angelina's breath catches when she sees this, but she shakes her thoughts away and starts her car. Out of the corner of her eye, she catches Rosa smiling, and then Amy pulls her into a hug.

Rosa really does have this beautiful, amazing, and special smile.

Angelina forces herself to look away and rests her hands on the steering wheel. She can think that someone is pretty without having a crush, right? Because she doesn't have a crush on Rosa. She doesn't have a crush on _anyone._ Not even Mike. Angelina was just humoring him when she agreed to that date. And he was pretty nice, so Angelina didn't really have any reason to refuse his offer.

Besides, Rosa has a girlfriend. A girlfriend who is probably a million times the person that Angelina is. Smarter, prettier, funnier, better in every single way. She's probably someone that Angelina could never ever compete with.

Angelina Riley just thinks that Rosa Diaz is pretty. There are a lot of pretty women in the world. Rosa is just another one of them. At least, that's what Angelina tells herself as she drives herself home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading it this far!!! comments and kudos are greatly appreciated!! and i am so sorry but i am definitely planning on having this be a slow burn!!!  
> also i have written jake to be bi because he totally is!!  
> also it is 10/11/18: happy national coming out day!!!  
> show off your pride with me on tumblr!!!: @darkrosemind


	7. i know that it's exciting (running through the night)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angelina takes Gina to a party. That's really all it is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title is lyrics from 'liability' by lorde  
> but every perfect summer's eating me alive until you're GONE, better on my own

A while later, there is a Christmas party that Amy and Jake throw for the squad. Everyone comes to it, even Angelina. She stands off to the side watching, for the most part. She snorts as Rosa dumps tequila into the punch bowl.

While everyone is talking and dancing, Angelina grabs Gina's arm and pulls her aside to the wall that she has been standing against.

"Ow," Gina complains. "What was that about? This material is _expensive,"_ she says, rubbing her arm. Angelina rolls her eyes.

"Whatever," she mutters, pulling out her phone. She opens her DMs and shows something to Gina. "So apparently, everyone knows that I moved to Brooklyn. Look at this."

"Ooopsie! Might've done something there," Gina snickers. Angelina squints her eyes and Gina.

" _You_ told people?" she says in disbelief. "Oh god, never mind. There's a New Year's party that I'm invited to. It's on Long Island. I wasn't gonna go, but I guess that I'll take you and after this, you never _ever_ speak of my life ever again," Angelina says. "Deal?"

She puts her hand out to shake, but instantly withdraws it when Gina pulls a safety pin out of her purse and says "blood oath."

"Actually, just saying it verbally is fine," Angelina says quickly.

"Blood oaths are more cool. Your loss," Gina says, tossing the pin back in her purse. "But anyways, deal, guaranteed that Taylor Swift's gonna be there."

"Taylor Swift is _not_ gonna be there. This is a small party. There won't be any Beyonce-level people there," Angelina says.

"Then why should I go?" Gina asks.

"Do you want to come or not?" Angelina asks sharply. "I can just, you know, _not._ "

"Fine, fine. Whatever," Gina says and is about to creep back to the makeshift dance floor, but Angelina pulls her back.

"I will pick you up on December 31 at nine. Wear something nice," Angelina says.

"You don't know where I live," Gina tells her.

"I'm a detective," Angelina says and is about to walk away when Gina pulls her back.

"What about Mike? I thought your first date went really good. Aren't you gonna spend New Year's with him?" Gina asks, puckering her lips.

"He's spending winter in Boston with family," Angelina says.

"Ooh, is everything okay?"

"Everything is _fine,_ " Angelina mutters. "Just remember what I told you, Linetti. After this party, you will not ever speak of my double life."

"Whatever," Gina says, waltzing back onto the dance floor to bump into a five-drink Amy. Gina quickly shoves a glass of tequila punch into Amy's hands and Amy gulps it down.

The next few days are spent in good spirit by everyone. There are thick layers of snow outside, and the entire bullpen has been decorated courtesy of Terry and Jake, even though Jake had somehow wrapped himself up from head to toe in tinsel.

Amy has replaced the coffee in the break room with hot chocolate, much to everyone's delight, except for Rosa. "Hot chocolate is for jolly idiots," she mutters, pouring an entire mug down the sink.

"So, are we gonna meet at Shaw's on New Year's Eve so that we call all watch the clock strike twelve?" Charles asks excitedly in the briefing room.

"S'long as I can bring Alex," Rosa says. Charles beams. Jake and Amy nod.

"I'm busy," Angelina says quickly.

"Oooh, spending New Year's with Mike?" Amy asks.

"Yeah, sure. Whatever," Angelina lies. Everyone seems to buy it. (except for Gina, of course.) Angelina doesn't elaborate and looks the other way.

"Well, what about you, Gina?" Jake asks.

"I'm busy, Jake. Sorry, I know that you will all miss my beautiful presence at your party. I'm gonna go watch the ball drop with Beyonce," Gina says.

"No, you're not," Jake says. "I took you to see the ball drop once. You _hated_ it, Gina."

Gina slightly shudders from the horrifying memory. "Are you Beyonce, Jake?"

"Actually, Beyonce's in Seattle right now," Rosa says, looking up from her phone.

"Rosa Diaz is a Beyonce fan?" Gina says. "I've taught you well."

"Everyone is a Beyonce fan," Captain Holt says from behind them. Jake's entire face lights up. "I will be at Shaw's at midnight. I will also be bringing Kevin along if that is all right."

"Of course, Captain," Amy beams. "Oh, it's gonna be so much fun!"

"Moving on," Terry says. "We got a tip the other night that there's going to be a man dressed as Santa breaking into people's houses. Peralta, take Diaz and follow up on this. Riley, Boyle, you're on the Garner arson case," Terry instructs, and in a few moments, everyone has left the briefing room.

Later on, Rosa, Jake, Charles, and Amy meet in the break room. "Do you really think that Gina's gonna go see the ball drop?" Jake asks.

Rosa shrugs. "I wouldn't put it behind her. There's bound to be _someone_ famous there that Gina wants to see. I mean, it's the freaking ball drop," she reasons. Amy frowns.

"Um, guys, I just found out that Mike's going to Boston to spend time with his family," Charles says, looking up from his phone.

"How do you know that?" Amy asks.

"I've been keeping tabs on him," Charles says. "Anyways, I think that Angelina's 'gonna see Mike' story is an alibi. Unless she's going to Boston, and Mike left for Boston like yesterday," he informs them.

Jake lifts an eyebrow. "Why would she make up a story?"

"Maybe she doesn't want to come to the party," Charles reasons.

"Or maybe she has somewhere else to go, but doesn't want any of us to know about it?" Amy pitches. Rosa's brow furrows.

"What the hell goes on with her?" Rosa mutters.

"Maybe we shouldn't interfere with her business," Amy says quietly.

"No, you're right," Rosa says, exiting the break room. Jake, Charles, and Amy all watch her leave.

"She's got her thinking cap on," Charles quips.

He's right. There is currently a storm of ideas swirling around Rosa's mind as of how to get answers from Riley. Rosa's pretty sure that she knows a sufficient amount about Angelina Riley, but there is probably a lot that Rosa _doesn't_ know about her.

So the next day, Rosa drags Angelina by the arm towards the interrogation room. "What's happening," Angelina says as she tries to pull her arm from Rosa's grip.

Rosa holds on tight, walking swiftly. "You're needed in the interrogation room," she says flatly. They reach the interrogation room, and Rosa pushes Angelina in, locking the room.

"There's no one here," Angelina says in confusion, watching Rosa stuff the key in her boot. "You know, I have a key, too―" Angelina reaches into her jeans pocket, and then into her jacket pocket. Her hands come up empty and she frowns.

"You left your key on your desk, Riley," Rosa informs her.

"Why are we here, Diaz?" Angelina says, squaring her shoulders. She's still a little bit shorter than Rosa, but she looks up at Rosa and stares her in the eye. "I have work to do. Let me go."

Rosa rolls her eyes. "Sit down," she says, gesturing to the chair. Angelina narrows her eyes and doesn't move.

"Not unless you tell me why we're here," she says.

"Just sit down, will you? I don't want to make this harder than it already is. Damn it, Riley," Rosa says in frustration. Angelina decides to humor her and takes a seat. Rosa takes a deep breath and sits down across from her.

"You pulled this stunt right when I thought we were getting to be friends, Diaz," Angelina says. Rosa snorts, scooting her chair in closer to the table.

"Whatever. I need answers, Riley," she says.

"Answers? Cool. To what, your eighth-grade algebra exam?"

"Not funny. I need to know why you lied to us," Rosa says. "What's your deal, Riley?"

"My deal?" Angelina lifts an eyebrow, not giving in to Rosa's questions. "I'm not single, thank you very much for asking."

Rosa rolls her eyes with frustration. This was going to be harder than she had thought. "You said that you were going to spend New Year's with Mike. He's gonna be in Boston," Rosa accuses. She drums her fingers on the table, staring at Angelina.

"Why are you stalking my boyfriend?" Angelina snaps.

"I'm a detective. I have sources, Riley. Why did you lie to us? Did you just not wanna go the party or something, because you could've just said so. It's totally cool," Rosa tells her.

Angelina sighs. "Look, what I do in my free time is none of your business―"

"Title of your sex tape," Rosa interrupts dryly. Angelina rolls her eyes.

"Look, Diaz, this is exactly why I lied to you guys. Because I don't want you people to start investigating my business like the detectives you are," Angelina insults.

"You're a detective, too," Rosa throws back.

"Whatever," Angelina says, standing up. "Key."

Rosa finds it and tosses it onto the table. Angelina scoops it up and leaves the interrogation room, leaving Rosa sitting at the table, sighing with a mixture of relief and defeat.

Later on, Jake corners Rosa when she is about to leave the bullpen after her shift is over. "Did you get anything out of Riley?" he asks.

"No," Rosa snaps. "She has an attitude."

"Attitude? Who has an attitude?" Terry asks, walking over carrying a cup of vanilla yogurt and a spoon in one hand.

"No one," Rosa says, leaving the bullpen.

"Detective Riley, apparently," Jake tells Terry after Rosa is gone.

"Riley? She's all right. Terry approves of her. Did she manage to get on Rosa's bad side or something?" Terry asks. Jake shrugs.

"From the looks of it, yes," he says.

"All right. I'll talk to her. Go home, Jake," Terry says, walking over to Angelina's desk. She is still bent over some paperwork, and Terry pulls a chair up to her desk and sits down.

She looks up and gives Terry half of a smile before returning to her work.

"It's late, Riley. Why are you still here?" Terry asks.

"Just finishing up some work and then I'll go home," she says.

"Well, how are you doing here, Angelina?" Terry asks. Angelina looks up at the use of her first name.

"Hmm? I'm fine. It's all going really great," she says.

"Really? Hey, listen, is everything all right between you and Rosa? I know that she can get a little aggressive and scary, but don't let that get to you. She's really a sweetheart underneath," Terry tells her. Angelina raises both of her eyebrows and gives a short laugh.

" _Rosa?_ Please. She doesn't scare me," Angelina says, scribbling something down onto her paper.

"Oh, okay. Well, if you need anything, Angelina, then just ask, all right? And please go home," Terry says, standing up. He pulls out his phone a minute later and opens his messages from Jake

 

**Jake: heyyy sarge if u find anything out than tell meeeee 😀😃😎**

**Terry: I think I know what the problem is, Jake.**

**Jake: what is itt plz let me kno 😋😊😆**

**Terry: Angelina's NOT afraid of Rosa.**

**Jake: i dont get it 🤔🤔**

**Terry: Rosa wants everyone to fear her, right? Angelina doesn't, so now she's on Rosa's bad side.**

**Jake: k thats not bad i gues 🙂🙂😀😁🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂**

 

On December 31st, Angelina drives her car over to Gina's address around nine. She texts Gina, letting her know that she is waiting for her.

Gina climbs into the passenger's side a few minutes later. She wears a nice black skirt and frowns when she sees Angelina's outfit.

"You said to wear something nice," Gina accuses. Angelina looks down at her own outfit and frowns.

"So? This _is_ nice. This is my best denim jacket and these are new shoes. Anyways, who cares. Let's go," Angelina says, pulling the car out of the parking lot.

"Okay, but I hope you don't mind if I, like, play some Rihanna," Gina says, pulling out her phone and pressing a recording. "Oh, wait, no, that's me covering all of Beyonce's 'Lemonade' album. Wrong recording," she says, tapping on a different recording. Angelina has to fight back a smile at Gina's antics.

Gina starts getting antsy after half an hour. "Are we there yet? I thought you said Long Island," she complains.

"Not Long Island City, Queens. We're going to Long Island, New York, and the drive is over an hour long, Gina. I thought you knew that" Angelina informs her.

"Whatever. I'm gonna play some Halsey now because that girl really has some bops," Gina says, changing the music.

They drive in silence, the only noise being Gina's music, which she stops to change every few minutes. A while later, the car rolls to a stop outside of a large house. Gina's head jerks up and she looks out of the window to see cars parked everywhere around the street.

"Wow," Gina breathes, climbing out of the passenger's seat. "I am _meant_ to be here," she says, mindlessly walking out in her heels and towards the house.

Angelina rushes to stop her. "Where are you going? We're going over _there,_ " Angelina says, pointing a smaller, deserted-looking house across the street Gina looks baffled for a minute before Angelina laughs. "I'm joking."

They make their way up the steps of the house, where the door is answered by someone holding a red cup."Oh, Riley! Hi! You made it! I wasn't sure what you actually meant when you DMed me on Twitter," he says. Angelina smiles.

"Hi, Marcus," she says. "This is my friend Gina," Angelina says, gesturing to Gina, who is looking around.

"What's up. Can anyone tell me where to find Beyonce?" Gina says, nodding at Marcus, who laughs.

"I'm afraid that Beyonce will not be joining us tonight. This is a small party," he says. "Though you might be able to find a few stars who live along the eastern side of the country. I invited Angelina last year. She didn't come, though," Marcus says.

"Oh my god, Marcus, we've literally seen each other like three times. That doesn't make us best friends," Angelina says, laughing. "Besides, Chicago isn't exactly on the eastern part of the country."

"Hmm, I don't care. Anyways, are you like someone famous? Famous people don't really have a normal name like 'Marcus,'" Gina interrupts.

"You're funny," Marcus says. "I use a stage name, but Marcus is my real name. Like Angelina here uses a stage name."

"Mines a little bit more complicated than that," Angelina says. "My stage name is _literally_ my last name,"

"That makes it less complicated," Marcus says. "Hey, where did your friend go?"

Angelina looks around and shrugs. "I have no idea. Anyways, Marco, I'm here to have a good time."

"Do _not_ call me Marco," Marcus says, biting back a smile. "Anyways, Bea Miller just texted me. She's gonna be here in a few minutes."

"Cool," Angelina says, biting her lip as she trails deeper into the house, searching for a head of auburn hair that might belong to Gina.

At some point, she does find Gina, or rather, Gina finds her. Angelina is busy playing pool against someone as she is interrupted by the assistant. "Hey," Gina says, tilting her head towards Angelina. "Have you dated any of these people before?'

"No. Are you drunk? You're fucking drunk. Gina, how many drinks did you have?" Angelina asks as Gina heavily leans on her.

"How many did _you_ have?"

"None. I'm driving you home, remember?" Angelina reminds her. "And why do you care if I ever dated any of these people? Which, I didn't, by the way."

"Because I don't know, I might make out with someone. And I don't wanna make out with an ex of yours. Whatever," Gina mutters, sashaying away. She moves her arms and legs along to the music as she drifts into the crowd.

A minute before midnight, everyone starts counting the seconds down. Gina is the loudest of them all. "Thirty-three! Thirty-two! Thirty-one! Thirty!"

Angelina watches her with a small smile on her face. As the clock strikes midnight, couples kiss and hug. Outside at the back of the house, someone sets off a few fireworks, which explode loudly.

The party surges on, but Angelina has other ideas. She manages to locate Gina, who is loudly talking to a young pop star. Angelina grabs Gina's arm and pulls her away. "Hmmm, do you wanna dance or something?" Gina slurs.

"We're going home, Gina," Angelina says. Gina doesn't seem to complain.

Angelina says goodbye to a few people on her way out of the door and helps Gina to the car. Once they are both inside and Angelina has started the car, she clears her throat. "Okay, I feel very sober and I know that you're very drunk, but I think that you're my favorite person from the Nine-Nine," Angelina says. "And I'm only saying this right now because I know that you're very drunk."

"Aww, Riley! I'm your favorite! Isn't that _cuuute,_ " Gina mumbles. "We can be _friends!"_

"Oh my god, drunk Gina Linetti is _terrifying,"_ Angelina says, driving slowly along the road.

Nearly an hour and a half later, Angelina is waking Gina up and walking her up to her apartment. Another half hour passes before she gets home herself, and collapses on her bed, not bothering to change her clothes.

The next morning, Angelina wakes up with her entire body feeling stiff. She peels off her jeans and pulls a pair of sweatpants out of the closet. Angelina pulls on a zip-up hoodie and sighs. It's ten in the morning, but she's exhausted. Angelina opens her phone to see that Gina has texted her about a million different pictures. She scrolls through them, finding that they are all pictures of Gina with different people.

Angelina smiles, before dragging herself out of her bedroom with the intention to get to the kitchen to make herself some breakfast. About halfway there, Angelina spots the couch and diverts her route from the kitchen, collapsing on the couch and closing her eyes for another long nap.

Jake and Amy are both asleep when Jake's phone rings. Jake grunts and rolls over, effectively hitting his head on the headboard. He lets out a slur of half-asleep curses, and Amy sits up in bed. Her hair falls everywhere, and she snatches at Jake's ringing phone.

It is none other than Charles Boyle. "Jake! Jake, guess what?" he says.

"It's Amy," Amy mutters in a dry voice. "It's too early for this."

"Where's Jake?" Charles asks.

"He's sleeping. Like normal people," Amy answers.

"Anyways, guess what? Gina posted some pictures on her Instagram last night, and she didn't go to see the ball drop last night after all! She went to a party! Without us!" Charles says. Amy can't tell is he's outraged or enthusiastic.

"Can we do this some other time?" Amy asks. "I want to sleep. And my head hurts"

"Raw egg yolks," Charles says. "It's the best hangover cure, trust me―"

Amy hangs up and falls face-down onto her pillow, effectively passing out into a very deep sleep.

A few hours later, Charles wants his friends to all have lunch together. He and Jake reach a compromise: Charles does not get to choose the place. They end up on picking a pizza place. Jake texts Gina and Rosa. He texts Angelina, telling her that she doesn't have to come, but it would be nice if she would, but she doesn't have to.

Surprisingly, everyone shows up, and it seems that Amy is not the only one battling a hangover. Gina deals out some of Captain Holt's headache medicine that she had stolen, and after a while, Amy, Jake, and Rosa's heads begin to clear up.

"Why don't you guys have hangovers?" Jake complains, taking a tender sip of orange soda.

"I took the medicine before," Gina says. "Charles just generally doesn't get hangovers because he's weird―"

"It's the raw egg yolks. Trust me," Charles nods.

"And Angelina just doesn't drink or whatever," Gina finishes, yawning.

"So, Gina, did you enjoy watching the ball drop?" Charles asks suspiciously. Gina shrugs.

"Eh, it was all right."

Charles raises an eyebrow. "But you weren't in Times Square last night," he accuses.

"There's such a thing as YouTube live, Charles. I thought you would've known that by now," Gina says lazily, taking a bite of pizza. Angelina snorts.

"You went to a party! A party better than ours, and you didn't want to tell us!" Charles says loudly. Gina rolls her eyes as Jake pulls up Gina's Instagram and looks through the pictures.

"Why weren't we invited?" he asks, before spotting a famous rapper in the corner of one of Gina's pictures. "Oh," Jake says, tilting the screen to show Amy.

"Since when do you know famous people?" Amy asks.

"Honey, I _am_ a famous person. Have you _never_ noticed the little blue check next to my name on twitter?" Gina takes a long sip of water.  

Rosa shrugs. "Cool. Whatever," she says, tearing off a chunk of pizza with her teeth. Charles gapes in horror.

"Rosa! Rosa, no! That's not how you eat pizza!" he exclaims, and proceeds to show everyone the exact way of how to properly eat pizza for the next ten minutes.

A week later, they are fresh into January and Terry is running a task force to bust a Brooklyn gang that has been committing crimes from petty theft to homicide everywhere. Most of everyone is focusing on this task force, and Charles and Rosa go off to investigate an accusation.

Jake and Terry are off to arrest a member of the gang, and Amy is going door to door to find information. Angelina sits in the interrogation room, dictating perps and getting information from them. Captain Holt is proud at how productive the precinct has been (apart from Hitchcock and Scully, who are sleeping in the break room again.)

When Jake and Terry come back, Jake sits in the interrogation room with Angelina and bullies their perp into talking. Jake's phone starts ringing, and he picks it up and throws it across the room. It shatters against the opposite wall. "If that was my wife, then you're in deep trouble," Jake tells the perp, who glowers back at him.

Angelina snickers as he leans in to whisper to her. "I'm gonna need a new department-issued phone, so could we maybe talk to Terry about that after this? I've already asked for three in the last five months."

"Sure," she mutters back, smacking her palms against the table, effectively shaking up the perp. They get him to talk ten minutes later, as Jake pops open a can of orange soda in front of him.

Later, Jake drags Angelina along with him to ask Terry about a new phone. "Sarge, Detective Peralta needs a new cell phone; he broke his while getting our guy to talk; blah blah blah. Whatever," Angelina calls, turning on her heel and heading to her own desk.

A minute later, Rosa returns to the bullpen, plopping down at her desk. She puts her feet up on the desk and furiously begins typing something up. Angelina watches her for a moment, before grabbing her phone and getting up. She heads up to the roof.

The roof is by far Angelina's favorite place in the precinct. There is so much to see from the roof, and the cold weather stings her skin, but she loves the feeling. As far as Angelina's concerned, it's the feeling of being alive; being able to feel the air.

She stands near the edge of the roof and looks down at the street. Cars move past, and the people walking down below are merely small moving dots. White snow crunches beneath Angelina's feet, and she kicks at the ground. The snow around the street has either melted or turned to slush.

Angelina bends down and scoops some of the snow up into her fist. It's not fluffy, but rather packed. Angelina drops the snow and sighs, breathing in the cold air. Her phone buzzes and she pauses for a moment before looking at it. It's a text from Jake.

 

**Jake: hey were r u holtz lookin 4 u**

**Angelina: i'll be right there**

 

Angelina heads back down to the bullpen, taking a last glance at the snow-covered rooftop. She meets Captain Holt in his office. "Ah, Detective Riley. Good work with the interrogations," he praises. Angelina nods. "I need you to work this Saturday. As long as you are not doing anything else, of course."

Angelina frowns and quickly checks the date. "No, I don't believe I'm doing anything. Of course, I'll work on Saturday," Angelina says, and Captain Holt nods. Angelina leaves his office.

The bullpen is quiet without the rest of the squad on Saturday. It feels deserted and lonely, even after the weekend team comes in. They don't talk much― all they do is work. There is no constant conversation or jokes being traded.

Angelina Riley is suddenly very glad to work with all of her coworkers. They keep the mood around the precinct light and humorous, and it's generally more fun to be around them than the weekend squad.

Angelina reads texts from the Nine-Nine in between doing her paperwork. Charles is taking his son to the park. Jake and Amy are going sledding. Gina and her daughter are tagging along Jake and Amy, and Gina has big plans to live tweet Jake and Amy's sledding. No one knows what Rosa is doing, but Gina predicts that she is probably out with her girlfriend.

Angelina fills out another form when her phone rings. She doesn't bother to check the caller ID when she answers it with a solid "What."

"Hey! It's Mike!"

"Hey. How's Boston?" Angelina asks with a completely different tone.

"Actually, I just got home. Where are you? I tried stopping by your place, but there's no one there?" Mike asks.

"Oh, yeah. I'm at the Ninety-Ninth precinct because I'm doing weekend work. I thought you were flying in next week, though," Angelina says. "Not that I'm complaining or anything."

"Yeah, I wanted to surprise you! It didn't exactly work out the way I had imagined it, though," Mike says.

"Well, can I see you tonight?" Angelina asks.

"Yeah," Mike says, and the conversation ends.

Ten minutes later, Angelina hears the elevator door ping open. She doesn't bother to look up and continues to flip through files, until she hears footsteps right next to her desk. Angelina tears her eyes away from the paperwork and looks up to see Mike standing there and smiling. He clutches a rose in his palm, which for some reason, reminds Angelina of Rosa.

"Hey!" she says, pushing the thought away and standing up. "What are you doing here?"

"I thought I'd surprise you!" Mike says, pulling her into a hug. He hands her the rose, and Angelina smiles.

"Just wait a few minutes. I have a little more work to do―"

"That's okay. I can help you," Mike says, and sits down. Together, they speed through the paperwork until it is all gone.

Later that night, Angelina is sitting nervously in the restaurant across from Mike, something nerve-wracking on her mind. She takes a sip of water and looks up to see him watching her. "Are you all right?" he asks.

"Uh, yeah! Fine, fine. Just― I'm bisexual." It comes out of her mouth before she can stop to think about it. Mike looks at her. Angelina can't tell if he has a surprised expression on his face or not.

"Oh, okay! That's… great! Good for you," he says, eagerly putting up two thumbs up.

"So you're okay with it?" Angelina says. "Because, I mean, I just thought that I would, you know, _tell_ you that I'm not straight or whatever. Since, you know, we're―"   

"Angelina, it's okay," he cuts in. "Really. I'm cool with it."

"Um, okay?" Angelina says. "Great."

The rest of the dinner goes pretty well, and neither Mike nor Angelina bother to talk about what had just happened.

Gina Linetti flounces into the bullpen that next Monday and bounces over to Angelina's desk. "Hey, guess what!" she grins, holding up two concert tickets. "I got these VIP tickets to this Panic! at the Disco concert! Thanks for taking me to that party or whatever. Like, I finally got the address of one of Rihanna's beach houses. Guess what I'm doing this summer! Yeah, but I'm gonna take Iggy to her first ever concert this Friday!" she waves the tickets in the air.

"That's great, Gina," Angelina comments.

"Ooooh, cool! I took Nikolaj to one of those country boy band concerts a month ago. He hated it. I'm just really not that sure what genre of music he'd be into―" Charles starts.

"Are we discussing musical genre? I would like to join into this conversation," Captain Holt interrupts. "I am quite a fan of classical and jazz music, but I also enjoy the genre of… _pop."_

"Captain, do you have a minute to discuss the many powerful musical statements the Beyonce has made throughout her career?" Gina asks.

"Of course, Gina," Captain Holt replies. "I am quite a fan of Lemonade." He leads Gina to his office.

"Cool, cool, cool cool cool. Maybe I should take Nikolaj to see Beyonce," Charles murmurs thoughtfully.

"Good idea, Boyle," Angelina comments, heading out of the bullpen to do some field work.

Terry and Jake watch her go. "Do you think Rosa and her are still in a fight?" Jake asks Terry.

" _No_ one is in a fight, Jake. We don't fight here. They just have a... passive aggressive disagreement tension," Terry replies.

Jake stares at him, confused. "What's  _that_ supposed to mean, Terry? Stop speaking Amy-language and start speaking real words," he says.

"Those are real words," Terry says, watching Rosa drop her bag down on the floor and sit down at her desk. "Rosa seems fine."

"That's because Angelina isn't here. We're gonna have to observe them when they're both in the same places," Jake says. Terry nods in agreement.

"Fine."


	8. we live in cities, you'll never see on screen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> stuff is happening!! things are changing!! and on top of that, people (my main character Angelina Riley of course) are remembering their pasts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is sort of shorter compared to the rest of my chapters but what can i say? sue me. anyways, i still have no idea what i'm doing so i wouldn't be surprised if u didn't understand this chapter at all because i didn't get it when i was writing it either (i mean it made perfect sense in my head though) also the chapter title is lyrics from 'team' by lorde (which is one of my all-time favorite songs in the entire world!!) I would like to apologize for perhaps not writing Iggy Linetti's character perfectly because I don't know how kids work and I don't know how old Iggy is so she's just referred to as a toddle but I also don't know what toddlers can do and can't do so sorry about that.  
> also i would like to sincerely apologize about the horrible spacing between paragraphs, in my defense it's totally not my fault because i wrote half of the chapter on miscrosoft word and then some on google docs so the spacing is all messy and idk how it works and stuff

A month later, Angelina practically storms into the bullpen and throws her bag down. She angrily falls down into her chair and crosses her arms over her chest. Rosa glances up for a second but returns to her work. Surprisingly, it's Gina who comes over, phone in hand,  and swipes away some papers to sit on top of Angelina's desk.

"Hey, what's up with you?" Gina asks, an edge of concern in her voice. "I mean, not that I care or anything," she adds after a second of hesitation.

Angelina sighs. "Nothing," she huffs.

"Hmmm, doesn't seem like nothing to me," Gina tells her. "You look like, _mad_ mad. Like you were just in a big fight or something."

"Maybe I was," Angelina mutters, but doesn't bother to elaborate.

Gina's eyes widen. "Girl, this sounds like some pipin' hot tea. Tell me!" she pleads. Angelina rolls her eyes, and motions for her to leave. Gina stubbornly crosses her legs and refuses to budge.

"Gina, maybe if you go away, then I'll tell you," Angelina negotiates. Gina shrugs, hopping off of Angelina's desk as if she is about to walk away.

Before she leaves, Gina leans in closer to say something to Angelina. "By the way, did you hear that the precinct is handing out free couple cruises? Maybe you and―"

Angelina frowns. "The precinct is handing out no such thing, and I'm single," she scowls.

Gina jumps up in triumph. "Yes! I _knew_ it! Mike broke up with you! That's why you're all upset!"

"Shut up," Angelina hisses. "And for the record, _I_ broke up with _him._ Not the other way around." Angelina crosses her legs and glances towards Rosa. Rosa looks up for a moment and meets Angelina's eyes before quickly jerking her head back down to concentrate on her work.

"Damn, girl, what did he do?" Gina asks.

"I'm not gonna talk about my break up with you, Linetti. I've got work to do," Angelina says, swiftly standing up. She turns and heads to the evidence room.

"Harsh," Gina complains. She looks over to Rosa. "Why do you think Riley broke up with Mike?" she asks Rosa.

Rosa looks up at Gina and shrugs. "Who knows. She probably had her reasons. Besides, Riley deserves better than a dork like Mike," Rosa says, resting her chin on her hand.

"Hmm, since when did _you_ care so much?" Gina asks, raising an eyebrow.

"I don't," Rosa scowls. "Go away, Gina."

Gina shrugs and walks back to her own desk, but not before snapping in sleepy Jake's face to wake him up. "Hmm?" Jake murmurs. "I'm here, Captain!" he says, and closes his eyes again, laying his head back on his desk.

"Damn, who raised you?" she mutters, a phrase that she has used multiple times in Jake's presence.

Charles walks over. "Actually, Gina, I believe that Jake was raised by Nana. Yes, _the_ Nana who also played a part in raising not only Jake, but _you_ as well," Charles says smugly. He raises his mug to his mouth to take a dramatic sip, but jerks his face away quickly. "Ow, hot! Hot, hot! Ow! It's so hot!"

"Title of your sex tape," Jake mutters in his sleep. Gina pats him on the head twice before running off to the break room to grab herself a cup of coffee.

When Angelina returns to her desk, she finds Amy waiting there for her. "Hey," Amy offers sympathetically.

"Uh, hi," Angelina says.

"How are you doing?" Amy asks. Angelina shrugs.

"Fine, I guess."

"I heard about you and Mike. I'm sorry about that," Amy says, offering a smile.

"It's fine. It just― it wasn't something that was meant to work out," Angelina says. "Did Gina―"

"Yeah, Gina told me," Amy says. "If you need anything― if you want to talk about it, I'm always here," Amy tells her. Angelina nods, and Amy heads off to Captain Holt's office to discuss crime stuff.

After Jake has had his coffee and is fully awake, he and Terry spy around on Angelina and Rosa. "They seem fine," Jake says.

"Don't let that fool you. You never know what's going on in Rosa's brain. And you never know what's going on in Angelina's brain, either. When was the last time that they talked to each other?" Terry asks.

Jake puts his hands on his hips. "Dude, they don't have to  _talk_ to each other to get along. They could be texting, or writing notes, or tagging each other on Instagram," Jake says.

Terry raises an eyebrow. "We're talking about Rosa here, not Gina. For Rosa,  _all_ of that seem kinda unlikely."

"Eh, good point. I mean, they aren't at each other's throat, so that's definitely a good sign," Jake says. Terry nods in agreement.

Gina ambushes Angelina in the break room later on. "Why did you and Mike break up?" she asks, with a touch of genuine concern. Angelina finally caves into telling Gina.

"Okay, Gina, I'll tell you, but don't tell anyone else? Please?"

Gina nods. "Spill."

"I told him I was bisexual a while ago, and I mean he was cool with it and stuff, but he started getting all _weird_ after that. I don't know, he was just― I don't know how to explain! He kept on―" Angelina exclaims indignantly. "He was actually kinda a sketchy person, now that I'm thinking about it. Never kept his gun in his holster while he investigated a crime scene."

Gina lays a hand on Angelina's forearm. She flinches from the casual touch for a moment. "Girl,  it's obvious that you deserve way better than him."

"Thanks, Gina," Angelina says. "You're a good friend."

"We're not friends!" Gina says, yanking her hand away from Angelina. "I never said that we were friends," she protests, trying hard to keep a smile off of her face.

"Yes, yes you did!" Angelina laughs.

"No, did not!" Gina bickers.

"Yeah, you so did!"

"No! When?!"

"At the New Year's party! You were drunk, Gina, but you said it. You said that we were friends," Angelina grins.

"Fine," Gina caves. "We're friends, but you tell anyone, and I leak _all_ of your personal information to the entire world," she threatens.

Angelina shudders. "Who ever said that Rosa's threats were scary? They're nothing compared to the threats of my friend, Gina Linetti," she says jokingly.

"Is everyone so desperate to be my friend?" Gina wonders. "I mean, I totally do know that I'm fabulous and beautiful and wonderful, though. You know what? If I weren't me, then I'd want to be my friend, too," she concludes. "But hey, did you ever tell Mike about the... you know, the  _thing?"_

Angelina frowns. "What thing?"

"You know, where you try imitating Beyonce," Gina elaborates.

"The music thing? Oh, no, I never told him. No big deal. I don't really tell anyone about that, really. You only know because you snooped," Angelina says.

"Do you ever tell anyone you're in a relationship with that you're part music artist?" Gina says in disbelief as Jake walks into the room and props himself up on the pool table.

"Hey, guys," Jake says, ripping open a pack of Double Stuf Oreos. "Want an oreo? They're double stuffed." He holds out the pack to the two women.

 _"Yes,"_ Angelina says, grabbing one. Gina goes ahead and takes two as Jake continues talking.

"How's everything going with you guys? Oh, how's Iggy, Gina? I haven't seen her in a while!" Jake asks, licking the oreo cream. Gina stares at him.

"Again, Jake, how can you eat an oreo like that? That's despicable. Anyways, Iggy's fine! She's great! She's going to daycare now, and she's the best one in her class," Gina says.

"Hey, I've actually _never_ met your daughter," Angelina brings up.

"Oh, yeah? Well, I've never met _your_ daughter," Gina challenges.

"That's because I don't have one, Gina," Angelina reasons. "I have three nieces though, but that's it."

"Okay, fine. You can meet Iggy sometime. Just try not to dampen her brain cells," Gina says in a joking manner.

"Uh, okay. Cool," Angelina says.

Three days later, on their day off, Gina texts Angelina her address.

 

**Gina: u wanna meet my daughter or not**

**Angelina: sure**

 

So Angelina drives over to Gina's place, clutching a bag of goldfish for Iggy.  Gina answers the door, bouncing a toddler on her hip. It's a beautiful and glamorous place, much like Gina herself. "This is Iggy," Gina says. "Say hello, Iggy."

Iggy waves at Angelina quietly. Angelina smiles, holding up the bag of goldfish. "I brought this for Iggy," she says. "Not sure what toddlers eat, though."

Iggy looks at her mother and then moves to grab the bag. "Fish," she says, pointing to it.

"Yes, it's a fish, Iggy. Nice observation," Gina says. She sets Iggy down on the floor. "So, Iggs, do you know who this is?" Gina asks, and Iggy shakes her head no. "Of course you don't. Not many people do, so can't blame you. Anyways, this is Detective Angelina Riley; she does that 'catching bad guys' job, you know, that one thing that a seven year old kid can do blindfolded." Gina says. Angelina bites back a smile, and Iggy watches with large blue eyes. "Yeah, I know, right? And sometimes, apparently when she "feels like it" she becomes music artist Riley, known in one country for not going on tour and sometimes not even showing up to her own concerts," Gina continues.

"That was _one_ time!" Angelina protests. "And I did show up. I was just half an hour late because of a case that I had been working on―"

"Nah, we don't care," Gina says. Iggy steps forward and tugs on Angelina's leg.

"Are you and my mommy friends?" she asks. Angelina smiles.

"No, we're absolutely not friends. We're work acquaintances, and sometimes we hang out," Gina says.

"That sounds like friends to me," Iggy answers.

"Ugh, how are you so smart?!" Gina says, smiling at Iggy. "Oh, wait, you're my daughter! That's why!"

Iggy rips open the bag of goldfish in response, grabbing a handful and munching on the crackers. She points up at Angelina. "I like her," she says.

Gina sticks her tongue out at Angelina. Angelina widely at her. "Aw, thank you! I like you too! Also, love your shirt!" she says to Iggy.

"Uncle Jake got it," Iggy replies, flaunting off her shirt. A small auburn curl falls in her face and she carefully tucks it behind her ear.

"Iggy, do you want to show Angelina the new lego set?" Gina says to the little girl.

"It's a death ship," Iggy proclaims before running to go get it. She ends up playing with Angelina for the good part of the day.

"She likes me," Angelina says before leaving. Gina rolls her eyes.

"Okay, nerd. Iggy likes a lot of people. You're not special," she smiles. Iggy waves goodbye to Angelina, and Angelina waves back.

Around the beginning of May, Jake and Amy stand up in front of everyone after the briefing is over and announce that they are expecting a baby. Charles immediately passes out, while everyone else congratulates the couple.

  
Charles is carried to the break room, where he is set down on the couch. Amy gingerly presses a wet washcloth to his forehead as they wait for him to wake up. He does, a minute later, and almost immediately has a panic attack. “Amy! No, no! You should be resting!” he exclaims, and sits up, pulling her down onto the couch. “Man, I can’t believe that you guys are gonna have a baby! Wait, I can believe it! It’s what I’ve wanted all my life!”

  
Jake laughs. “Okay, dude, cool down. It’s gonna be okay. Just breathe, Charles.”

  
Later on, Jake finds Rosa. She is interrogating a perp, so Jake waits on the other side of the mirror for her to finish. He watches her with awe as she quickly withdraws the information that she needs out of the perp. After that, she sees Jake and walks over to him. “Hey, man.”

  
“Rosa, can I talk to you?” Jake asks. Rosa purses her lips.

  
“Sure. It’s about the baby, isn’t it?”

  
Jake’s face lights up at the mention of his future child. “Yeah, it is! This is really great actually, and Amy and I are psyched for the baby, but can I ask you something? Like seriously?” Jake asks, looking at Rosa.

  
“Okay?” Rosa says.

  
Jake takes a deep breath. “Will you consider being the godmother of our child? I know it’s a little bit early and all, but Amy and I talked it over and we’d really like it if you were the badass godmother of our kid,” Jake says. “I mean, if all goes well, we’re gonna have a little baby Santiago-Peralta with us in seven months.”

  
Rosa blinks. “Oh,” is all she can manage to get out, because she’s honestly flattered that Jake and Amy had even considered her for the role. A small smile breaks out onto Rosa’s face. “Uh, yeah. Yeah. That’s cool,” she stammers.

  
Jake wraps her up into a tight hug. “Thank you so much! I love you, Rosa,” he says.

  
Rosa grins. “I’m happy for you guys. You’re gonna make a great dad, Jake.”

  
Jake can feel tears welling up in his eyes. “Yeah,” he manages, the tears of happiness threatening to fall. Jake blinks twice and releases Rosa. “Thanks,” he says. “Now I’m gonna go ask Terry to be the godfather,” he says, and leaves Rosa alone in the interrogation room.

  
Charles is running after Amy, making sure that she’s resting and not working too hard. “For the last time, Charles, I’m fine,” Amy insists after Charles brings her a pillow.

  
“Detective Boyle. There is a case that Sergeant Jeffords would like your help in working,” Captain Holt interrupts. Terry looks up from his desk, alarmed.

  
“What?” he asks.

  
Captain Holt shoots him a just go with it look.

  
“Oh, yeah! Charles, there’s this case that I could use your expertise in!” Terry says, effectively luring Charles away from Amy. Amy sighs in relief.

  
“Thank you, Captain,” she says. “Now I can actually go out and get some field work done-“

  
“Not so fast, Santiago,” Captain Holt says, stopping her. “You’re staying right here. That baby needs their mother to be safe,” he says. Amy crosses her arms and rolls her eyes.

  
“Honestly! I’m fine!” she insists stubbornly.

  
Meanwhile, Gina is trying to convince Jake of what to name his future child. “Come on, Jake! It would be the perfect name! Paperclip Pantsuits Peralta has such a nice ring to it,” she says. “I mean, you also can’t go wrong with Stapler Laminator Peralta.”

  
Jake laughs. “Haha, Gina, you’re hilarious,” he says.

  
Gina flips her hair over her shoulder. “I know,” she says. “I’m wonderful.”

  
They both look up to see Angelina poke her head through the doorway of the break room. “Hey, Jake, Holt wants you to help me with this case or something? Whatever. Anyways, congratulations, dude!” she crosses over to where Jake and Gina are sitting. “I’m sure that Stapler Laminator Peralta is gonna be a great kid. Or Paperclip Pantsuits Peralta. Personally, I like that one better. The alliteration makes it sound really great,” she says, high-fiving Gina’s open palm.

  
“Hmm, yeah, it does sound like a neat name,” Jake says thoughtfully. “Anyways, what’s the case?”

  
“String of robberies like three blocks away,” Angelina says. “Or something. Anyways, what’s new?"

"Hitchcock stabbed himself in the face with the photocopier," Jake says. Gina furrows her brow.

"With the photocopier? How even―" Angelina looks out of the break room for a moment. "Oh, that's how. Okay, then."

"Do we need to be working on that case?" Jake asks. Angelina shrugs.

"Probably."

"So, what do we need to do?"

"Check the Miller case from last month for connections. The robberies follow alphabetical order so that suggests―"

Angelina gapes at Gina. "How did you know all of that?" she asks, jaw dropped. Gina grins at her expression.

"I told you that your job could be done by anyone, you poor soul. I just proved that I'm a better detective that you!" Gina says. "I've been saying it for years; Gina Linetti is a great detective!"

Angelina blinks. "Okay, I'm gonna go check the case files again―" she stumbles out of the break room with a dazed expression. Gina turns to Jake.

"I actually heard Raymond talking about the case a little while ago. Yeah, that's right, we're on a first name basis, bitch," she explains to Jake. Jake laughs.

"I should probably go help her with that case," he says.  

   
The next day, Angelina heads straight for her studio after work. She pushed the door open to room 32A. Xander isn't there, so Angelina sets everything up by herself and plays around with the sound. "Had to have high high hopes for a living," she sings, pushing her fingers down on the piano keyboard. "Shootin' for the stars when I couldn't make a killing."

She stops when she hears the door being pushed open. Angelina looks up and swipes her hair out of her face to see her brother standing in the doorway. "What are you doing here?" she asks.

Andrew shrugs. "I thought I'd find you here," he says.

"How'd you know where my studio is?"

"I'm a journalist. It's my job to know everything."

Angelina narrows her eyes at him.

"Okay, fine, your manager told me," Andrew says and walks towards Angelina and peers down at the mess on the table. "Why is it so messy here?"

"It's art," Angelina says defensively. "It's _supposed_ to be like that."

Andrew laughs. "You sound just like you did when you were sixteen," he says. Angelina ignores him and plays a melody. "Okay, but what songs do you know on that thing?"

"My songs. Some other songs," Angelina says, messing with the soundboard.

"I still remember when you would sing at that diner," Andrew says. "And then when Mom and Dad wanted to eat there, I'd text you and you'd pretend that you were helping out in the kitchen," Andrew reminiscences. Angelina laughs.

"Remember that time you brought all of your high school friends there without telling me?" she says.

"Yeah, you got so flustered," he teases.

"Only because I never sang in front of people that I knew!" Angelina protests.

"What about Alex?" Andrew asks.

Angelina's eyes widen and she sighs. "Alex was different! Like, I knew her, and she was my friend, and I liked her, and she didn't care about shit. She was awesome," Angelina says.

"That was a dumb job you had. They didn't even pay you that much."

"I didn't go there for the money. That job got me to where I am today, and I have no regrets! Besides, I had my first kiss in that diner," Angelina says.

"You never really gave me the details of that," Andrew says, raising an eyebrow.

"Well, there was a room in the back of the diner where they'd keep the mics and some instruments and stuff and I'd hang out in there with Alex! I liked her! And then we kissed," Angelina tells him. Her eyes start to mist up and she blinks furiously, tapping out a few notes on the piano.

"Oh, sick; what was that?" Andrew asks.

"Am. Very basic," Angelina says.

"Okay, nerd."

"Yeah, whatever, but I'm a single person now, so I will spend as much time in this studio as I want," Angelina says. "I can stay here all night for all I care, except that I have freaking work tomorrow."

"Oh, that's right; you broke up with Mike. I liked that guy," Andrew says.

"I didn't," Angelina mutters. "That's why I broke up with him."

"Play some music," Andrew says.

Angelina wiggles her fingers and starts playing the piano. "Our thing progresses, I call and you come through. Blow all my friendships, to sit in hell with you. But we're the greatest, they'll hang us in the Louvre. Down the back, but who cares? Still the Louvre," she sings.

"What is that song?" Andrew asks.

" _What is that song?"_ Angelina mocks. "It's Lorde, stupid. Lorde. The most fantastic and amazing being to ever exist on this disaster planet. Do you live under a freaking rock? Imagine how terrible your life would be if you didn't know who Lorde is."

"I thought that was Beyonce," Andrew smiles. Angelina makes a face at him.

"There's more than one most fantastic and amazing being to ever exist on this disaster planet," she says. "We live in cities, you'll never see on screen, not very pretty but we sure know how to run things. Livin' in ruins, of a palace within my dream, and you know, we're on each other's team," she belts out.

"Ooh, nice falsetto. That's what they're called, right?" Andrew asks.

Angelina sticks her tongue out at him.

"You know, I like hanging out like this with my little sister. It reminds me of when we were younger. Do you ever miss Anna?" Andrew asks her.

At the mention of their younger sister, Angelina's gaze turns stony. She shakes her head. "Why the hell would I miss _Anna?_ Of all people, she and Mom are like the last people I would miss."

Andrew whistles through his teeth. "Wow, okay. Someone's holding a grudge."

"Yeah, I sure as hell am. Anna was a freaking business major. Nobody likes those. Besides, she was stuck up, mean, bratty; she blackmailed me  and then outed me to Dad. There was a reason we never told Anna anything. She was Mommy's little girl," Angelina scorns.

"Dad was okay with it though. You being bi; Dad was fine with that," Andrew reasons.

"But that still wasn't _her_ thing to tell him! That was mine! I had it all planned out― I'd wait till I had an apartment secured when I was older and then on April Fools day, I'd tell him and if he didn't accept it, I'd be all like 'April Fools, bitch, just kidding!' And then I'd leave and never talk to him again," Angelina says.

Andre laughs. "Yeah, I know. It's the same plan you had since you were fourteen, and you've told me at least a million times."

"No, but that's not even the worst of it! Anna then proceeded to tell Mom, and then all hell broke loose, I ran away and started living on my own when I was nineteen, and then she didn't talk to me for months. Personally, I was totally okay with that, though," Angelina says. "Besides, you weren't even there for all of that. You were too busy with Avery. Anyways, when was the last time you talked to Mom?"

"Like a year ago. Sorry I wasn't there. I should've been," Andrew says.

"No, you don't have to be sorry. I get it, you had your own life and stuff. It's totally fine. Well, this has been quite the dive into the past―"

"Last time Mom called me, she told me to look after you," Andrew interrupts.

"Yeah, that's what she always said. Because she couldn't look after me herself," Angelina says bitterly.

"I think she was kind of sorry about everything―"

"Andrew, she called me a few months ago and degraded my _hair._ She wasn't even there to see it. That's why I chopped it short," Angelina says, pulling at the ends of her hair.

"It's growing back."

"I know. Your observation skills are on point," Angelina says.

"It is my job as a journalist, after all," Andrew jokes.

They end up spending another few hours in the studio, talking about their childhood in between Angelina's musical brainstorming. When Angelina goes home that night, it's gotten to be pretty late, but she's fairly proud of the piece of music that she had written earlier.


	9. explosions on tv, and all the girls with heads inside a dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this whole chapter is fiasco and i don't know what i'm doing anymore, okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title lyrics from buzzcut season by lorde

She's sitting at her desk in the bullpen, writing up a report when the phone on her desk rings. Angelina answers it with a simple "Detective Riley." 

Rosa lifts her eyes off of her own work for a moment and glances at Angelina. Angelina is frowning as she talks in a whispered hush on the phone. "Why are you calling me? I told you not to call me. No, I'm not giving you another chance. Shut up. If you call me again, I'm gonna have to report you." She slams the phone down into the receiver and continues working on her report.

Rosa looks at her quizzically for a moment and Terry comes by. "Everything all right here? Who called you, Angelina?" he asks.

"Not important," Angelina says. "He's not gonna call again."

_ "He?" _ Terry asks. "Was that Mike?"

Angelina shrugs. "More or less."

Rosa returns to her work before taking another long look at Angelina. She's typing quickly, not sparing anyone a second glance. After a few minutes, Angelina heads to the briefing room, and Rosa returns her concentration to her case.

**** A few minutes later, Angelina opens up a text from her friend Marcus. He was at the New Year’s party in Long Island that she had attended with Gina a few months ago. Angelina lifts an eyebrow while reading the text.

 

**Marcus: hey dude whats up im around ur area and im doing a concert— wondering if ur down to make an appearance at the show**

**Marcus: what do u say riley**

**Angelina: maybe**

**Angelina: when’s the concert**

**Marcus: in 2 days at the venue by capital street in brooklyn**

**Angelina: okay i’m down**

**Marcus: cool see u then**

 

Terry walks over to Angelina’s desk with a clipboard in his hand. “Hey, Angelina, I was wondering if you could work a little bit later on Friday,” he says. 

Angelina looks up from her phone. “Oh, hey, Sarge. Actually, I can’t. I’ve got plans,” she says.

“Oh, okay then. What are you doing?” Terry asks with genuine curiosity. 

“Concert,” Angelina says casually.

“Cool. Sharon actually wanted to go to a concert Friday night, too. She’s going out of town with Ava, though. I think the venue was by Capital Street,” Terry says. “You going there?”

“Mhmm,” Angelina says, picking up a file and standing up. Rosa, who is sitting at her desk, watches Angelina walks away. Terry raises his eyebrows and shrugs.

“Okay, then. Anyways, I’m gonna go work on my case. Hey, Rosa, if you need anything for your case, feel free to ask,” Terry says, walking towards his own desk.

Rosa begins typing up her report on her computer when Angelina returns. For a few minutes, the work silently and peacefully, until Angelina’s desk phone rudely cuts through the emptiness. Angelina fumbles for it.

"Detective Riley."

Rosa looks up for a moment. 

"God _damn_ it, Mike, just leave me the fuck alone. I really don't like you," Angelina says in an angry hush and slams the phone down into the receiver.

**...**

Angelina rides her motorcycle to the concert hall to meet Marcus. His security ushers her backstage, where she finds Marcus holding a mic. He grins when he sees Angelina.

"Soundcheck," he says. They acquire Angelina a mic and rehearse some Marcus's music first, before moving onto a few of Angelina's songs.

Later, Angelina's walking around backstage as Marcus performs. Angelina is technically supposed to be a surprise guest, so she sits in the back for a while and waits for Marcus to introduce her. 

Finally, she hears him say, "I have a surprise! You know her, you love her--"

Angelina rolls her eyes. Leave it to Marcus to be overly dramatic.

"Riley, everyone!" he shouts, and Angelina skips onto the stage.

They end up having a really good time and a great performance. After the concert is over, Marcus informs her that there is a meet and greet and that she's welcome to stay for it. Angelina shrugs because why not?

There is a table at the front that is covered with a crisp white tablecloth. Stacks of Marcus's CDs are placed on top of it, and people line up to meet Marcus. Angelina is standing a few feet away from the table when everything happens.

A man steps out of the line. He's got a gun in his hands, and it's pointed at Marcus. Angelina's jaw momentarily drops open. Marcus's security detail moves to rush towards him. "Anyone moves, and they die," the gunman threatens.

He doesn't seem to see Angelina, who is a few feet behind him and standing very still.

Meanwhile, fans who are standing in the line are discreetly beginning to call 911 while trying not to panic. One of the calls goes straight to the Nine-Nine, and Terry recognizes the name of the concert hall.

It's the one that Angelina's at.

Within minutes, Terry has the squad assembled. "Detective Riley is already in there, so she's probably already working on the situation," he tells them as they drive down to the venue.

Rosa closes her eyes for a few second and opens them in disbelief. "Of course Riley's already there," she mutters.

The gears in Angelina's brain are turning faster than ever as Marcus slowly raises both of his hands. He has a fearful look on his face, and he briefly makes eye contact with Angelina. She waves for his attention and starts making hand signals behind the gunman's back. She motions a punch towards the gunman and then motions for Marcus to duck down. Marcus gives her the slightest nod, and Angelina prepares to dive into action.

She throws herself at the gunman with as much force as she can muster. They both go down, but not before a few shots ring out. Angelina is hoping that Marcus ducked down in time while she lands a punch to the gunman's face and wrestles the gun out of his hands.

The Nine-Nine is outside the concert venue when they hear the gunshots. Terry blinks. "That's it, we're going in!" he says, and Rosa sprints to the front of the building.

Meanwhile, Angelina has managed to get the gunman down on his stomach; one knee on his back. She glances towards Marcus to make sure that he is unharmed, and he flashes her a thumbs up. Angelina nearly reaches for the handcuffs that she carries at the back of her belt before looking up at the crowd. Multiple people hold cell phones and are clearly recording. Angelina lightly curses before seeing Rosa running towards her at full speed.

Rosa slows down and kneels down next to Angelina. "Oh, thank god you're here," Angelina mutters softly. "Read him his rights," she tells Rosa. Rosa looks at her with confusion.

"Didn't you do that already?" she asks.

"No. I'm off duty, so read the idiot his stupid freaking rights," Angelina says. Rosa shrugs and begins to read the man his Miranda rights while handcuffing him.

Angelina seems mad. She stands up and storms towards Marcus to make sure that he's okay. "This meet and greet is _ cancelled _ ," she says to the crowd, helping Marcus to his feet. He ends up leaving the building heavily guarded by his security team.

“Well, what the fuck was that?” Gina says, walking into the room. She holds her phone up, clearly recording the scene. Amy follows Gina. She is in full gear.

“Hey, Sarge, we need to disperse this crowd,” Rosa calls to her. Amy’s eyes sparkle.

“I’m on it!”

The next day, Gina arrives at Angelina's apartment unannounced, carrying a bottle of wine. "It's not for you, it's for me," she breezily explains when Angelina lets her in. Angelina shrugs, and Gina makes herself at home on Angelina's couch.

"So, uh, what brings you here, Gina?" Angelina asks.

Gina laughs. "Oh, Angie. You are  _ all _ over the news," she says, pulling out her phone.

"Am not," Angelina huffs. "Just a small corner. And I don't wanna be there."

Gina holds up her phone. "You know, they're saying that you made a daringly brave citizen's arrest," she says. "Look at this! People got pictures of you taking down that guy at Marcus's meet and greet. You saved a man's life! Oh, yeah, and they want you to come down to this talk show―"

Angelina peers over Gina's shoulder and looks down at her phone screen. She shakes her head. "No, no, absolutely not. Can't risk that. Everyone would figure out that I'm― well, I'm―"

"Riley?" Gina says. "Yeah, so that's why I'm volunteering to take your place!" she chirps. "Isn't that great news?" Gina opens the wine and takes a swig straight from the bottle.

"Not happening, Gina," Angelina says. 

"Come on, Angie!"

"They'll get Marcus to go on instead," Angelina says, pulling out her own phone. "That's what usually happens." Her phone rings in her hand, and she answers it. Gina watches as she talks into it shortly, and then ends the call.

"Ooh, who was that?" Gina asks.

"My manager. He was calling about whatever you just told me," Angelina says. Gina shrugs and grabs Angelina's TV remote.   

**...**

Angelina's at home in her apartment, sprawled out on the couch and watching live performances of Lorde when her phone rings loudly and she drops it on her face. Angelina curses once before seeing her brother's contact photo beaming up at her.

"Andrew, it's Friday night and I was just getting ready to relax, so this better be good," Angelina says when she answers his call.

"I know, I know, and I'm sorry! But here's the thing: Selina's at her eighth grade dance and the electricity just shut down in the school, and it's turning out to be kind of a disaster without music," he says frantically. Angelina frowns.

"Okay? Don't the kids have music on their phones?" Angelina asks.

"Yeah, but they're not gonna agree on it and they want live music! I hate to ask this, Angie, but could you do something? For Selina?" Andrew asks.

Angelina sighs. "If there's no electricity, then I can't plug in my piano or anything," she says. "And there would be no mic―"

"There's a battery mic; you play the guitar too, so please just come over? I'm texting you the address. Can I tell the kids that they should be expecting music? Please, Angie?" Andrew says.

"All right, fine. But I'm only doing this for Selina," she says defiantly. Angelina gets off of the couch and grabs her denim jacket, pulling it over her t-shirt. She grabs her ankle boots and runs to her study, where she pulls open the closet and grabs an acoustic guitar sitting in the back. 

Within a few minutes, Angelina is on her way to her niece's school. She is met at the entrance by an anxiety-ridden Andrew, who pulls her into the gym.

"Why do they even have dances? Do they even dance? Like seriously, what do they do? Stand around?" Angelina mutters. The gym is dark, except for a few battery spotlights against the walls. "I don't know how to play to a crowd of eighth graders."

"You're a professional, you can figure it out," Andrew says, and pushes her up to the front of the gym. There, a mic stand and a stool is brought out in front of her. "Oh yeah, and keep it PG," he reminds her. Angelina rolls her eyes.

"What do I play, then?" she asks.

"Anything!" Andrew says.

"Aunt Angie?" Selina has come forward. "Wow, I'm so glad you could make it!"

"Oh, here's an expert. Selina, what kind of music are you kids into?" Angelina asks quickly.

"Top hits? I don't know. Just play anything, and they'll be happy," Selina tells her.

"You sure?" Angelina asks. Selina nods, so Angelina pulls the mic closer to her face and clears her throat. She strums the guitar a few times, and the kids' attention is turned towards her. "Hey, guys!" Angelina says. "It's kind of dark in here. Do me a favor; if you have a cell phone on you, flashlight, lighter― um, no, actually, no lighters― then take it out and hold up a light!"

Within a minute, the gym is lit by kids holding their cell phone flashlights. Angelina picks a song she knows that is still popular and starts playing it.

Half an hour later, they're having a good time, and song requests are flying everywhere. "If I know it, then I'll play it!" Angelina says. It's actually kind of nice, seeing the kids having a good time. Andrew is beaming at her from the side, flashing her a thumbs up.

She leaves the school kind of happy later that night, driving home slowly and ready to sleep till noon the next day.

The weekend is over before she knows it, and she's heading into the bullpen on Monday morning when Rosa shoves past her and dumps her bag on the floor next to her desk. Jake lifts an eyebrow at Rosa, who scowls at him.

Rosa is angry all morning; angrier than usual. She won't speak to anyone, so Jake and Amy recruit Gina to figure out what is going on with Rosa. Gina reports back to them after an hour. "Alexis broke up with her," Gina says.

"Oh, no! Is Rosa gonna be okay?" Amy asks. They are standing in the evidence lockup, discussing ways to cheer Rosa up.

"She's Rosa," Gina says. "She'll be fine."

"So what do we do?" Jake asks, scratching the back of his head. 

"We should take her out to lunch," Charles suggests. "There's this  _ great _ new place two blocks away that makes―"

"I'm gonna stop you right there," Gina mutters. "All of your food places are gross." 

"Maybe we could―" Amy starts, but pauses when the door to the evidence room opens and Rosa steps in. She looks around and frowns.

"What are you guys all doing here?" Rosa asks, making her way towards a shelf.

"Looking for a file," Amy yelps quickly, hastily grabbing a box. Rosa narrows her eyes at the group.

"You're lying," she says. "So you guys found out about my breakup. Whatever. It's fine, guys." Rosa says, turning back to the shelf and thumbing through a box.

Jake steps forward and hugs Rosa. She is a little take aback, but she lets him hug her. Her eyes soften for a moment, but they harden once Jake pulls away. 

"We're here for you, Rosa. If you need anything," Amy says. Gina and Charles nod. Angelina offers her a small smile, and Rosa nearly returns it before catching herself.

"It's nice to know that you guys care," Rosa says. "Thanks."

"Sooo… family game night tonight!" Jake says. "No buts, ands, whys, or crys. Hey, I rhymed! Maybe I should be a poet!" he says, turning to Amy. Amy puts an hand on his arm.

"Not the time, babe," she says, smiling. Jake nods.

"Noted. Noice," he says.

Later that night, the entire squad is at Rosa's apartment. Hitchcock and Scully sit on the couch, snacking on a few family-sized bags of chips. Amy and Angelina sit atop of Rosa's kitchen table, discussing several book series. Jake and Charles are drinking orange soda in wine glasses, and Captain Holt sits in a chair and discusses Beyonce with Gina. Rosa is caught in the midst of it all. 

This is truly her family. Rosa is involuntarily smiling at the people who make her feel at home; the people who are there for her no matter what. "Hey," Jake says, interrupting her chain of thought. Rosa looks up at him and he holds up a video game controller.

"Battle for Justice," he says. "Let's play."

In a few minutes, the squad is situated around the TV, as Jake and Rosa battle on screen as superheroes. Jake has chosen The Flash as his superhero. Rosa counters with Shazam, and the rest of the squad cheers them on. Shazam ends up beating The Flash, so Jake hands his controller over to Gina.

"I'm Killer Frost," Gina says, selecting the character. Rosa laughs as they set to battle.

"Please, Gina. Killer Frost is  _ so _ easy to beat," Rosa says. Her character kicks Killer Frost a few times.

"Special move, Rosa! Use your special move!" Jake eggs on. Rosa does so, and Killer Frost is down and out.

Gina hands the controller over to Angelina, who smiles. Rosa grins at her. "Bring it," she challenges. Angelina raises an eyebrow and selects Black Adam.

"The most worthy opponent of Shazam is his archenemy, Black Adam," Angelina says in a dramatic voice. Rosa concentrates on the screen, doing her best to bring Angelina down. Angelina counters a few of her attacks, and then ends up using her special move, knocking Shazam out. "I win," Angelina says triumphantly. Rosa reluctantly hands her controller over to Amy.

Amy cracks her knuckles. "This is gonna be easy," she says. "It's all about the angles and distance that you hit at―"

"Boring," Gina says. "Pick a superhero, Amy."

Amy selects Hawkgirl.

Two minutes later, Angelina is handing her controller over to Charles, who picks Green Lantern and jams his thumbs onto the controller, spamming the buttons.

He ends up losing, and hands the controller to Terry, who choses Superman. 

Amy beats him as well.

"That's my wife!" Jake says happily, pointing at Amy. She beams at him.

"Captain. You wanna play?" Gina asks, pushing the controller into his hands. He stares at it.

"Well, I don't see why not," he shrugs, and selects Ares.

This last battle is the most intense one. Amy and Holt silently battle, their full attention focused on the screen in front of them Gina gives commentary on the sidelines. "Aand, Captain and Amy are tied. They can both use their special moves right now… and Captain goes for the special move! Amy counters, and goes for her special move! Captain counters! Oh, it's a wager now…. and Amy wins!"

Rosa's living room erupts into happy shouts. Captain Holt applauds Amy. "I feel like I've just won the Quidditch World Cup!" she exclaims happily, holding her controller up into the air like a trophy. Jake runs up and hugs her.

"That's my  _ wife! _ " he grins. "Queen of not only Monopoly, but also video games!"  Angelina, Charles, Terry, and Rosa all clap for Amy, who beams brightly.

**…**

The next week, Rosa and Angelina are working on a case together; checking out a scene of crime. Despite the warmth, Rosa tugs her leather jacket tightly around herself, looking around as the wind blows her hair in her face and the cars zoom by on the street.

"So, the perp could be around here," Angelina says. Rosa notices a hint of purple in the back of Angelina's hair. "You know what our guy looks like, right?" Angelina asks. Rosa nods, shoving her hands in her pockets. 

"Riley!" someone down the street shouts. Rosa turns to Angelina in surprise, who looks behind her quickly and breaks into a run. 

"I think I see our perp!" Angelina calls, and Rosa follows her in bewilderment. 

There is no perp to be seen. Angelina rushes to a stop behind a building, breathing deeply. She holds onto the brick wall for support. Rosa skids to a stop and glares at her, frowning. "Who said your name?" she questions. "And why did you run?"

"I don't know," Angelina says, pulling out her cell phone.

Rosa frowns. "Are you sure? Then why did you run?"

"Because I thought I saw our perp. Duh."

Rosa can tell that she's lying. She decides not to push it further. "Okay, fine. Whatever," she says.

"What? Really?"

"You're a good cop. I trust your instincts," Rosa shrugs. "Though you can be  _ really _ weird sometimes."

"Thanks," Angelina says.

An hour later, she is sitting in the break room, drinking from a bottle of coke, when Gina flounces in. "Heyyy, Riles. What's up?" she says, taking a seat next to Angelina.

Angelina yawns. "Nothing much. What about you, Linetti?"

Gina laughs. "Guess what's all over the news right now?" she asks, pulling out her phone and putting it down on the table.

"Hopefully something about undermining the patriarchy and ending global warming," Angelina mutters, putting her coke down on the table.

"Sorry, that's not on today. But guess who is?" Gina asks, smiling maniacally. "It's  _ you!" _

"Nope," Angelina says. "Not today. I'm not doing anything with the press today. She puts her head down on the table and bites her lip, closing her eyes for a few seconds.

"So this time, someone got a picture of you walking down the street with a  _ mystery girl  _ in Brooklyn," Gina says. "And judging from the blurry picture, I'd say that the mystery girl is none other than Detective Rosa Diaz." She shows Angelina the picture. Angelina's face is recognizable, but due to the wind blowing Rosa's hair everywhere, Rosa's face is hidden.

"What! No, this sucks. I hate the press," Angelina mopes.

"They think you have a thing going on with Rosa," Gina laughs.

"Why can't you just walk down the street with a coworker, goddamnit!" Angelina says. "People make so many stupid assumptions all the damn time." She pushes her bottle of coke away; her head still down on the table.

"You know, you wouldn't be the first person in this precinct to have a crush on Rosa," Gina says.

"I do not have a crush on Rosa!" Angelina protests.

Gina ignores her and continues talking. " Charles had a crush on Rosa once too. Granted, that never went anywhere, though. But me and Rosa had a thing once," she says, turning her phone over on the table.

Angelina's head snaps up. "What? You used to date Rosa?" she asks, eyes wide.

Gina shrugs. "Kind of? I mean, it was a secret, but we were," she says. "We had a good run, I guess. And then we kinda mutually broke up."

"Wow. I can't believe― actually, I kinda can," Angelina says, staring at Gina. Gina laughs. 

"Girl, if you wanna date Rosa, then go for it. I don't mind," she says.

"I never said― what― I don't wanna date Rosa!" Angelina splutters. "I never said I wanted to date Rosa!"

Gina smiles. "But you're into her," she says. "Trust me, Angelina, I  _ know." _

Angelina blinks a few times, biting her bottom lip. "I am not!" she says, squaring her shoulders.

"Okay, if that's what you say, Angie," Gina says, patting Angelina's shoulder. "Sure." Gina gets up grabs Angelina's half empty bottle of coke, taking it with her as she leaves the break room.

Angelina puts her head down on the table again, contemplating what Gina had just said. "I don't have a crush on Rosa," she quietly says out loud to herself. "We're just coworker-friends."

"Sure, if that's what you say!" Gina calls, popping her head back into the break room. Angelina sighs.

"I need a break," she mutters.

"That's what you're doing  _ right _ now!" Gina calls. "You're in the  _ break _ room, Angie! You're  _ taking _ a break!" Gina says.

Shut up," Angelina mutters, as she scrolls through an airline website on her phone.

**…**

Three days later, she's sitting on top of a weathered white wall overlooking the Lake Michigan. The sun has just started to rise, and the absence of warmth combined with the wind is chilling Angelina to the bone. She doesn't mind the cold, however, and sits with her legs hanging off over the wall as she watches the sunrise.

She holds her denim jacket in her lap and sighs while swinging her legs around.

"Hey!" A voice calls from down below. Angelina looks down to see someone waving up at her. The person starts climbing the tall steps leading up to the wall towards Angelina.

Minutes later, Stephanie sits besides Angelina. "I thought I'd find you here." She grabs the denim jacket from Angelina's lap and pulls it on. "Thanks. It was getting real cold," Stephanie says. Angelina shrugs. "Hey, you all right?" Stephanie asks, pulling an arm around Angelina.

"Fine," Angelina says. "Just had to get away from Brooklyn, I guess. Things were getting kinda hectic." She puts her hand on the arm that Stephanie has around her. "I can't believe you found me here," she says.

"Well, usually when you don't reply to my texts around sunrise, then you're over here," Stephanie jokes. "I know you, Angie, and you love being here at this time."

"You know, there's this beach near Brooklyn that kinda has this same feel to it," Angelina says. "I go there whenever I miss here."

"You could just move back here," Stephanie suggests hopefully.

"Nah," Angelina says. "I've invested in my life there too much to turn back now," she says. 

"You know, Angie, this is always gonna be home for you," Stephanie says. Her hair flies in the wind as they watch the sun dip above the lake.

"I know, Steph," Angelina says, laying her head on Stephanie's shoulder. "Sometimes, I really, really want to. But it's working out over there. I guess," she says, listening to the waves crashing against the shore.

"Yeah, I heard about the shooting thing that happened at your friend's concert," Stephanie says.

"It wasn't a shooting."

"Because you stopped it."

They sit on the white wall in silence for a few more minutes, until the warmth of the risen sun washes over them. Angelina watches the seagulls flying on overhead and swings her legs up on the wall, turning her body and standing up. Stephanie stands up as well.

"Let's go down," Angelina says, stripping off her shoes and leaving them on top of the wall. They jump the tall steps down to the near-empty beach. Angelina runs to the shoreline and rolls up her leggings. She splashes in the chilly water, and Stephanie follows suit.

"Remember when we'd come here in the morning when we were in college and collect seashells?" Stephanie asks. Angelina smiles fondly and nods. She looks up at the sky and then down to the water again, bending down and putting her hands in the water.

"Found one!" she says, holding up a small shell the size of her pinkie nail. The two friends spend the next half hour scouring the shore for shells. 

"I can bring them to Brooklyn for the girls," Angelina says after she has a small handful of the seashells. She carefully puts the shells into her pockets.

"Your nieces?" Stephanie asks.

"Yup. They'd love these. I think Andrew would like 'em too. You know, something to remind him of here," Angelina says. 

"Oh, yeah, your brother was the  _ best _ . I miss those times we used to prank him all the time," Stephanie says. Angelina laughs brightly. "I mean, it was  _ great! _ He's so gullible, too." Stephanie lifts her leg and splashes it down into the water.

"Yeah, he is," Angelina says.

"So, what's the Nine-Nine gossip?" Stephanie asks, twirling a lock of hair around her finger. She raises an eyebrow as she waits for Angelina to answer her.

Angelina shrugs. "Well, apparently, Gina Linetti and I are now on a nickname basis. Also, she dated Rosa Diaz for some time a while ago. Oh, and I went to their 'family game night.' We played video games. Also, Mike is still being a dick. Also, I'm working on an album. Oh, and the other day, someone recognized me while I was working on a case with Rosa, and I ran away. It was fun," she says, unloading the events of the past few days.

Stephanie throws her hands up in the air. "Woah, woah, woah. That's a  _ lot _ to comprehend. So Gina and you are on a nickname basis?"

"Yeah, I'm now either 'Angie' or 'Riles' to her. There's no in-between."

"And she dated Rosa Diaz?" Stephanie asks with a glimmer of interest in her eyes.

"Yeah, but they broke up a long time ago? Gina keeps on bullying me and saying that I have a crush on Rosa, which I do  _ not. _ "

"Hmm," Stephanie says, arching an eyebrow a Angelina. "Actually, I'm gonna agree with Linetti on this one," she says. By this time, they are walking on the sand along the shore. The sun is high up in the sky, and the beach is occupied with other people.

"What?" Angelina asks, staring at her.

"You  _ so _ do have a crush on Diaz. You talk about her a lot when you call me, you know," Stephanie says, laughing at Angelina's outraged expression.

"I do not!" Angelina protests. 

"You really do, Angie. Anyways, so you're working on a new album? Nice. And you went to the Nine-Nine's family game night?"

"Mhmm. It was okay. Anyways, what about you and Kai? You guys moved in together, I heard!" she says, throwing her hands up excitedly in the air. Stephanie beams and nods.

"Kai is  _ so _ great. He's awesome," Stephanie says.

"I'm glad that's going well for you!" Angelina grins.

"You wanna go get breakfast now? I'm starving," Stephanie says. They start walking back towards the white wall that they had previously been sitting on. Angelina jumps up the stairs and spots their shoes sitting untouched over the wall. 

An hour later, they're sitting in a cafe and eating scones. "Just like we used to after high school," Angelina says, sipping on her coffee. 

"Cheers," Stephanie says, holding up her coffee cup.

"To the old times," Angelina says, bumping her cup against Stephanie's.

"To the old times," Stephanie echoes.

**…**

Three days later, Angelina is watching her nieces while her brother and sister-in-law go on a date night. It's going very great; Ronni and Emmi are watching a movie and Selina is in her room down in the basement. Angelina is sitting at the kitchen table with a page of song lyrics splayed out in front of her, when her cell phone rings.

It's Rosa.

"I'm babysitting for Terry's kids and it's a nightmare! They're horrible!" Rosa's voice bursts frantically through the phone. Angelina raises an eyebrow.

"What happened?" she asks.

"Well, they tried doing some sort of science experiment, and there's gunk all over the wall, and Cagney and Lacey are trying to perform a sacrifice ritual on Ava? They have  _ knives! _ And I didn't know who to call, because I'm not calling  _ Terry, _ and Jake and Amy are out on a stupid date, and Gina is god knows where, so I'm calling you and you better be able to help me―" Rosa rants hurriedly in the phone.

Angelina releases the breath that she didn't realize she had been holding. "Okay. I'll be right over. But I'm bringing more kids," she says, and turns off her phone. "Guys! We have to go keep a badass coworker of mine from being murdered by kids with knives! Let's go!"

Ten minutes later, Angelina is at the Jeffords home. It's a mess. Rosa is sitting in the middle of the room, tied up by a jump rope to a chair. Angelina takes one look at the sight and laughs, pulling out her phone to take a picture to show Gina.

Rosa scowls, struggling against her bonds. "I can't believe you're  _ laughing, _ Riley," she mutters. "Untie me."

"Sure," Angelina says, slicing a stray knife through Rosa's jump rope bonds. Rosa stands up and starts shouting.

"Cagney! Lacey! Don't put that on your sister!" she exclaims, pulling a bottle of ketchup away from Lacey.

"But it's the blood! For sacrificing Ava!" Cagney protests. "Who are they?" She points to Angelina's nieces, who are standing shell-shocked in the doorway. 

"Yeah, who  _ are _ they?" Rosa asks, looking at Angelina. "Didn't know you had  _ kids. _ "

"They're not mine; they're my brother's," Angelina says. "I was babysitting. Same as you. Well, my job was going way better―" 

"Shut up," Rosa mutters, wiping her ketchup hand on a rag. "Can you help me clean this up or not?"

"Of course I can! Glad you asked, Ro," Angelina says and turns to her nieces. "You guys… Selina, you're in charge of the kids, I guess? Maybe they'll listen to you. Ronni and Emmi― just be good. Rosa, get Ava away from the twins!" Angelina yelps.

Rosa grabs Ava and hold her up at a distance away from her face. "Yeah, Ava needs to be cleaned up," Rosa mutters, carrying the ketchup-covered toddler to the bathroom.

Angelina grabs a rag and starts cleaning up the mess in the living room. By the time that Rosa is back, Cagney and Lacey are playing a board game with Emmi and Ronni, and Selina is sitting on the couch with her phone in hand.

"You are a lifesaver," Rosa says. "Thanks."

Later that night, Terry and Sharon come home to find Angelina and Rosa exhaustively sitting side by side (read: sleeping) against the couch, while their kids play with a few kids that neither Terry nor Sharon have ever seen. "I bet they're Angelina's nieces," Terry says. "I've heard her talking about them to Gina." 

"Well, looks like Rosa needed help," Sharon laughs. "Girls, did you give Aunt Rosa a hard time?"

"Yes!" Cagney and Lacey shout in unison. 

**Author's Note:**

> i hope that you are enjoying this story, because i'm trying my very best with it!! so much effort. comments and kudos are as always appreciated, and you can find me on tumblr: @darkrosemind


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